h't! 


li.iuuh;iliiiiin:Jiiii:iinii 


lilllillUUIIUIUIUtii 


iilliHiUlilllilHIiBiHIliiUltaMlli 


\    1 


y^T^.^^  ;Tur 


xs*^ 


JAB 
8U 


Sub0tQnct  anh  S\)ahovo: 


OR    MORALITY    AND    RELIGION 

IN    THEIR    RELATION    TO 

LIFE:   AN  ESSAY   UPON 

THE    PHYSICS   OF 

CREATION. 


HENRY    JAMES, 


BOSTON: 

TICKNOR     AND     FIELDS. 

1863. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1863,  by 

Henry  James, 

in  the  Clerk's   Office    of  the   District   Court   of  the   District  of 

Rhode  Island. 


R'l'uerside   Press: 
Stereotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton. 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

The    Introduction 3 

CHAPTER  I. 

Relation  of  Swedenborg  to  the  Intellect.  —  His  staunch  vin- 
dication of  human  equality.  —  The  angels  devoid  of  personal 
worth.  —  Swedenborg's  statements  imply  a  profound  Philosophy, 

—  Its  fundamental  notion,  the  dependence  of  Morality.  —  Our 
moral  force  a  perpetual  communication 31 

CHAPTER    II. 

Moral  life  in  order  to  spiritual. —  Kant  and  Swedenborg. — 
Swedenborg's  doctrine  of  the  origin  of  Evil. —  His  sincere  tes- 
timony  to  the  actuality  of  creation. —  Infinite  love  necessarily 
creative • 50 

CHAPTER     III. 

How  the  letter  of  Revelation  degrades  its  spiritual  contents. 

—  Time  and  Space  constitutional  conditions  of  our  conscious- 
ness. —  Natural  Religion  affronts  the  heart  even  more  than  the 
head.  —  The  Divine  perfection  is  eminently  human 65 

CHAPTER    IV. 

The  Divine  Humiliation.  —  The  creature  must  necessarily 
antagonize  the  creative  perfection.  — •  Personality  the  true  mar- 
vel of  creation.  —  The  creature's  identity  the  prime  interest  of 
creation.  —  The  practical  obstacle  to  it  in  the  nature  of  the 
creature.  —  Revelation  alone  competent  to  the  question 78 


iv  Table  of  Contents. 

CHAPTER    V. 

PAGE 

Philosophy's  true  function.  — Treachery  of  philosophers  to  it. 
—  Sir  William  Hamilton  makes  scepticism  the  basis  of  faith.  — 
Kant  makes  real  things  unintelligible,  and  intelligible  things  un- 
real.—  Sir  William  Hamilton  runs  Kant's  doctrine  into  the 
ground.  —  Between  the  two  Philosophy  is  reduced  to  a  pious 
hiccup.  —  Philosophy  is  totally  unharmed  by  the  Positivists.  — 
The  total  problem  of  Philosophy  is  to  reconcile  Freedom  with 
Dependence.  —  Swedenborg  alone  solves  it  honestly  and  with- 
out ostentation 89 

CHAPTER    VI. 

Swedenborg's  Doctrine  of  Nature.  —  Nature's  total  subordi- 
nation to  spirit.  —  Discrimination  of  moral  from  spiritual  life, 
largely   illustrated = 106 

CHAPTER   VH. 

Incompetency  of  reason  in  spiritual  things.  —  Nature  is  an 
implication  of  the  spiritual  world.  —  It  is  according  to  Swe- 
denborg the  Hand  of  God's  Power.  —  Moral  righteousness  in- 
compatible with  spiritual  innocence.  —  The  Law  is  intended 
to  minister  death.  —  Moral  force  characterizes  us  only  in  the 
infancy  of  our  spiritual  development. — The  Law  alone  gives 
a  knowledge  of  sin.  —  Delight  in  ritual  righteousness  fatal  to 
spiritual  life.  —  Our  spiritual  creation  contingent  upon  our 
natural  redemption.  —  We  are  born  only  to  be  reborn 118 

CHAPTER   VIII. 

Morality  is  a  platform  for  our  spiritual  regeneration.  —  It  is 
the  subject  earth  of  spiritual  existence.  —  Natural  existences 
forms  of  use.  —  Spiritual  existences  forms  of  power.  —  Nature's 
discords  harmonized  in  man.  —  Our  moral  discords  harmonized 
in  the  social  development  of  the  race.  —  Society  or  fellowship 
among  men  the  proper  outcome  of  the  Divine  redemption  of 
Nature. —  Thus  the  moral  sentiment  claims  only  a  social  glo- 
rification. —  Individual  regeneration  is  a  fruit  of  our  natural 
redemption. —  Church  and  State  are  mere  factors  of  a  perfect 
society.  —  The    Divine  benignity 137 

CHAPTER   IX. 

The  letter  of  religion  inversely  serviceable  to  its  spirit.  — 
Revelation  implies  a  veiling  of  spiritual  truth  ;  /.  e.  a  lowering 


Table  of  Contents. 


PAGE 
of  it  to  the  capacity  of  carnal  minds. —  The  Divine  is  prima- 
rily akin  to  our  least  reputable  interests;  or  has  chief  regard  to 
what  men  esteem  the  least. —  Hostility  of  the  religious  con- 
science to  God's  humane  perfection.  —  The  fearful  perversion 
which  Orthodoxy  makes  of  the  Christian  Atonement. —  Rit- 
uality  fatal  to  spirituality 156 


CHAPTER   X. 

Testimony  of  experience.  —  The  aim  of  all  God's  dealings 
with  us  is  to  undermine  our  virtue,  or  our  conceit  of  our  ability 
to  be  better  in  ourselves  than  other  people.  —  Redemption  the 
sole  secret  of  creation. —  The  conscience  of  sin. —  It  is  the 
only  legitimate  fruit  of  religious  culture. —  Is  the  conscience  of 
sin  real  or  dramatic? —  1  he  sectarian  view  absurd. —  The 
judgment  is  exclusively  a  spiritual  one.  —  The  philosophic 
meaning  of  the  judgment.  —  The  true  confession  of  sin  is 
never  a  ritual  one.  —  One's  conscience  of  sin  means  inwardly 
his  worship  of  God's  perfection.  —  It  is  a  mere  practical  decla- 
ration that  God's  goodness  is  ineffable 168 

CHAPTER    XI. 

The  Church  affects  a  real  sanctity.  —  She  lives  by  adroitly 
flattering  our  self-righteous  instincts.  —  Moral  righteousness 
when  regarded  as  a  positive  quantity,  fatal  to  spiritual  innocence 
and  peace.  —  The  church  embodies  and  authenticates  our  nat- 
ural sottishness  in  Divine  things.  —  She  is  the  refuge  and  cita- 
del of  a  frenzied  egotism  and  unbelief.  —  There  are  very  many 
in  the  church  who  are  not  of  it.  —  The  church  cannot  confer 
both  a  literal  and  a  spiritual  sanctity.  —  'Which  alternative  does 
she  see  fit  to  adopt  ?  —  She  adopts  the  latter 188 

CHAPTER    XII. 

Salvation  and  damnation,  spiritually  interpreted,  mean  sever- 
ally to  love  and  hate  our  kind.^ — -The  tap-root  of  character  is 
one's  conception  of  God.  —  The  unhandsome  fruits  of  Catholic 
religiosity.  —  The  subtler  but  more  harmful  fruits  of  Protestant 
fanaticism.  —  When  the  son  of  man  cometh,  shall  he  find  faith 
on  the  earth  ?  —  The  Jew  and  the  Christian  are,  respectively, 
carnal  type  and  spiritual  substance.  —  Religion  is  now  the  idol 
of  men's  impure  devotion.  —  The  sole  legitimate  force  of  re- 
ligion cathartic  not  alimentative.  —  The  true  enemy  of  God  is 

always  the  saint,  never  the  sinner 205 

b 


vi  Table  of  Contents. 

CHAPTER    XIII. 

PAGE 

The  kingdom  of  God  to  come  on  earth.  —  Man  is  a  micro- 
cosm because  the  cosmos  is  a  grand  man.  —  The  heart  of  men 
is  much  in  advance  of  their  head.  —  Regeneration  impossible 
save  through  a  redemption  of  Nature.  —  Jn  Christ  God  is  re- 
vealed as  a  glorified  Natural  man  :  hence  Christianity  por- 
tends a  Divine  innocence  for  man  in  the  sphere  of  his  natural 
life.  —  Our  religious  life  is  a  standing  opprobrium  to  the  Divine 
name.  —  The  life  which  Christ  inaugurates  in  human  nature  is 
not  post-mortem  existence.  —  God  is  perfect  Man 224 

CHAPTER    XIV. 

The  thorough  redemption  of  Nature  in  Christ. — Christ  is 
not  a  spirit  but  a  Divine  natural  man.  —  Swedenborg  scouts 
the  notion  of  any  arbitrary  power  in  God,  there  being  no  infant 
who  has  not  more.  —  Angel  and  devil  both  involved  in  Man. 
—  Influence  of  the  Christian  truth  in  the  natural  sphere  of 
the  mind.  —  In  Divine  order  the  First  is  last,  and  the  Last 
first.  —  Hell  is  glorified  in  conventional,  Heaven  in  true,  Man- 
hood      241 

CHAPTER   XV. 

Nature  implied  in  Man.  —  Incompetency  of  the  church  to 
interpret  Revelation.  Both  Theology  and  Philosophy  as  at 
present  administered  only  inflame  our  native  Pharisaism.  — 
There  is  but  One  Life,  and  we  are  His  constant  creatures.  — 
The  philosophic  idea  of  creation.  —  It  is  the  giving  inward 
substance  to  what  in  itself  is  pure  form.  —  Our  subjective  history 
involved  in  our  objective  creation. —  A  subject  can  never  prop- 
erly be  his  own  object. —  Kant  refutes  creation  by  the  fiction 
of  noumenal  existence.  —  Sir  William  Hamilton  hereupon  de- 
grades Philosophy  into  snivel 256 

CHAPTER    XVI. 

Constitution  is  not  character,  any  more  than  heart  and  lungs 
are  the  body.  —  Kant  habitually  confounds  the  two  things,  or 
supposes  that  you  give  being  to  things  when  you  give  them 
phenomenality. —  Idealism  the  bane  of  Philosophy  from  the 
beginning  ot  time  till  now.  —  Swedenborg  puts  a  stop  to  phil- 
osophic guessing.  —  Hamilton  and  Mansel's  testimony  to  Phi- 
losophy. —  They  make  it  an  abject  scepticism  relieved  by 
Cant 274 


Table  of  Contents.  vii 

CHAPTER    XVII. 

PAGE 
Kant's  analysis  of  knowledge.  —  He  makes  knowledge  a 
fact  of  physical  constitution,  not  ot  spiritual  creation.  —  Sci- 
ence has  to  do  with  the  constitution  of  things  ;  Philosophy  with 
their  creation.  —  Science  deals  with  the  finite  and  relative  ; 
Philosophy  with  the  infinite  and  absolute.  —  Facts  of  life  known 
from  within  ;  facts  of  existence  from  without.  —  The  consti- 
tution of  a  thing,  or  what  makes  it  appear,  is  never  what  cre- 
ates it,  or  makes  it  be.  —  Life  implies  existence  ;  soul  body-  •    286 

CHAPTER     XVIII. 

Life  or  consciousness  unites  what  sense  and  reason  disunite. 

—  Sir  William  Hamilton's  curious  theory  of  the  causal  judg- 
ment.—  He  finds  the  cause  of  a  thing  in  the  thing's  own  en- 
trails. —  Thus  he  thinks  saltpetre  is  not  merely  constituted  but 
caused  by  K  O  and  N  O^.  —  Cause  evoked  only  to  explain 
some  breach  of  natural  order.  —  We  never  ask  the  cause  of 
Things,  but  only  of  their  mutations.  —  Sir  W.  Hamilton  stul- 
tifies intelligence  by  confounding  Kiniteness  with  Phenomenal- 
ity.  —  They  are  as  distinct  as  sense  and  reason.  —  Cause  is 
adduced  to  explain  facts  of  phenomenal  not  of  fixed  existence. 

—  It  is  not  a  sensible  but  a  rational  inquest.  —  Cause  is  a  sci- 
entific rudiment  of  the  philosophic  idea  of  creation. — The 
force  of  the  causal  judgment  is  in  its  educating  or  disciplining 

the  intellect 299 

CHAPTER    XIX. 

John  Mill's  broad  human  sympathies. —  His  failure  never- 
theless to  explain  the  causal  instinct.  —  He  also  sinks  the 
philosopher  in  the  man  of  science.  —  He  restricts  cause  to  a 
merely  constitutive  not  creative  import.  —  He  makes  it  signify 
only  what  identifies,  not  what  individualizes  things.  —  Philoso- 
phy reverses  this  judgment,  giving  cause  a  creative  efiicacy,  or 
making  it  an  attestation  exclusively  of  the  spiritual  side  of  life, 
not  of  its  material.  —  Cause  invariably  opens  up  the  supernat- 
ural realm.  —  It  is  in  this  point  of  view  solely  that  Philosophy 
envisages  it.  —  Men  of  mere  thought,  not  of  life,  like  Kant, 
Sir  William  Hamilton,  and  the  rest,  deny  cause  a  spiritual  im- 
plication, because  they  resolve  spiritual  being  itself  into  physi- 
cal constitution.  —  Kant  makes  the  dissecting-room  the  school 
of  Philosophy.  —  He  found  life  so  dazzling  a  thing  to  contem- 
plate, that  he  betook   himself,  to  the  unspeakable   comfort  of 


viii  Table  of  Contents. 

PAGE 

his  optics,  to  the  contemplation  of  death  instead  :  only  unfor- 
tunately he  misnamed  that  death  life;  and  so,  by  his  great  au- 
thority over  men  of  thought,  not  of  life,  stirred  up  any  amount 
of  dreary  sepulchral  literature.  —  His  pretension  to  be  the  Co- 
pernicus of  Philosophy.  —  His  German  and  Scotch  disciples-  •    322 


CHAPTER    XX. 

The  fundamental  misconception  of  the  Critical  Philosophy. 

—  Kant's  dread  of  Philosophy,  lest  it  plainly  avouch  creation. 

—  Common  sense  affirms  creation.  —  Pseudo  Philosophy  denies 
it.  —  Kant's  fatal  philosophic  delinquency,  in  exteriorating  ob- 
ject to  subject.  —  The  extraordinary  performances  of  Fichte, 
Schelling,  and  Hegel  thereupon.  —  The  testimony  of  sense  one 
thing  ;  that  of  consciousness  another.  —  Kant  confounds  them. 

—  He  thought  finite  and  relative  to  be  one  and  the  same  con- 
ception. —  Sense  divorces  what  consciousness  marries.  —  Kant 
reduces  Philosophy  to  a  requiem  over  deceased  hopes. —  Na- 
ture a  correspondence  of  the  things  of  the  mind.  —  Man  its 
sole  unity 347 


CHAPTER   XXI. 

Alleged  duality  of  Man  and  Nature  in  consciousness.  — 
Their  real  unity  there.  —  The  objective  sphere  in  life  always 
controls  the  subjective  sphere.  —  The  ground  of  Kant's  mis- 
take.—  Are  we  properly  active  or  passive  in  knowledge?  — 
Noumenal  existence  fatal  to  creation.  —  Nature  necessary  to 
posit  the  creature,  or  give  him  identity.  —  Import  of  the  dis- 
tinction between  Identity  and  Individuality.  —  Philosophy  must 
accept  the  guidance  of  Revelation.  —  Uncontrolled  by  Philoso- 
phy science  is  necessarily  atheistic  and  logic  pantheistic 371 


CHAPTER    XXII. 

God  is  not  voluntarily  but  spontaneously  creative.  —  He  can- 
not create  Life,  but  only  communicate  it.  —  Before  life  can  be 
communicated,  a   basis  of  communication  must  be  organized. 

—  Creation  in  order  to  be  real  exacts  selfhood  in  the  creature  ; 
and  hence  claims  to  be  a  purely  spiritual  operation  of  God.  — 
Orthodoxy  turns  creation  into  a  mere  physical  exploit  of  God. 

—  In  truth,  however.  Nature  is  but  a  mask  of  God's  spiritual 
presence.  —  The  creature's  identity  the  supreme  care  of  the 
creative  Love.  —  This  interest  requires  that  he  be  an  inverse 
image  of  God's  perfection.  —  Community,  the  essence  of  Na- 


Table  of  Contents.  ix 

PAGE 
ture,  inversely  images  the  Divine  unity.  —  Nature's  sole  func- 
tion  is    to   emboiiy  the  spiritual  creation.  —  She  incorporates 
spirit 395 


CHAPTER    XXIII. 

Nature's  part  in  creation  is  purely  mediatorial.  —  It  is  im- 
plied in  Man  as  body  is  implied  in  soul.  —  History  is  the  vindi- 
cation of  the  human  form  in  creation. —  Adam  a  symbol  of 
the  Divine  celestial.  Eve  of  the  Divine  natural,  mind. —  We 
know  ourselves  at  first  only  as  sensuously  defined.  —  Sweden- 
borg'  compels  Nature  into  the  limits  of  consciousness. —  Our 
identity  and  our  individuality  equally  abject  masks  of  God's 
creative  presence  in  us 419 


CHAPTER    XXIV. 

The  problem  of  creation.  —  Insoluble  to  faith  and  science 
alike.  —  Atheism  or  Pantheism  a  necessary  logical  result. — 
God  must  give  His  creature  moral  consciousness  as  well  as 
physical  being.  —  The  inevitable  implication  of  the  finite  con- 
sciousness. —  Science  is  but  a  bridge  between  Religion  and 
Philosophy. —  Formula  of  our  intellectual  progress  :  Religion, 
Science,  Philosophy.  —  Natural  religion  is  bound  to  give  way 
to  science,  while  science  herself  however  has  no  pretension  to 
finality.  —  Science  is  only  a  handmaid  to  Philosophy.  —  Phi- 
losophy alone  has  power  livingly  to  reinstate  religion.  —  Relig- 
ion the  heart,  science  the  lungs,  of  the  mind.  —  Science  purges 
Faith  of  its  sensuous  elements.  —  Philosophy  is  the  brain  of 
the  mind « 434 


CHAPTER     XXV. 

History  summed  up  in  the  interests  of  church,  state,  and  so- 
ciety. —  Its  practical  scope  is  to  free  Eve  from  the  domination 
of  .Adam  ;  that  is,  invert  the  relation  of  subserviency  uhich 
the  principle  of  Individuality  is  under  to  that  of  Universality.  — 
It  transfigures  our  natural  communism  itself  into  the  intensest 
individuality.  —  Man  by  creation  is  perfectly  imbecile  in  him- 
self. —  Neither  man  angel  nor  devil  has  the  least  power  in  him- 
self.—  Man's  freedom  utterly  pliant  to  the  Divine  behests. — 
Marble  is  not  so  pliant  to  the  hand  of  the  sculptor.  —  Our  na- 
tive evil  a  negative  witness  to  the  divinity  of  our  origin.  —  Our 
experience  of  evil  strictly  constitutional  or  subjective.  —  Evil 
for  man  means  the  domination  of  the  individual  by  the  common 
I 


X  'Table  of  Contents. 

PAGE 
life.  —  Good  on  the  other  hand  means  the  social  subjection  of 
the  common  to  the  individual  life 46 1 


CHAPTER   XXVI. 

Spiritual  import  of  the  Gospel.  —  Creation  means  the  giving 
natural  substance  to  spiritual  form.  —  Nature  means  the  princi- 
ple of  community  in  all  existence.  —  Philosophic  bearing  of 
the  Christian  truth.  —  Consciousness  always  identifies  us  with 
maternal  nature.  —  Why  does  the  wife's  personality  merge  in 
that  of  the  husband  ?  —  The  reason  to  be  found  only  in  the  sym- 
bolism of  marriage.  —  Marriage  typifies  the  union  of  infinite 
and  finite  in  true  manhood.  —  What  has  so  long  blinded  us  to 
the  spiritual  contents  of  Revelation  ?  —  The  church's  supersti- 
tion. —  Gloria  in  excelsis  domino 484 


Appendix < 509 


THE    INTRODUCTION. 


The  leading  words  of  my  title-page  call  for 
a  precise  definition,  in  order  that  the  reader  may 
clearly  discern  the  aim  of  the  discussion  to  which 
I  invite  his  attention. 

By  morality  I  mean  that  sentiment  of  self- 
hood or  property  which  every  man  not  an  idiot 
feels  in  his  own  body.  It  is  a  state  of  conscious 
freedom  or  rationality,  exempting  him  from  the 
further  control  of  parents  or  guardians,  and  en- 
titling him  in  his  own  estimation  and  that  of 
his  fellows,  to  the  undivided  ownership  of  his 
words  and  deeds.  It  is  the  basis  of  conscience 
in  man,  or  what  enables  him  to  appropriate  good 
and  evil  to  himself,  instead  of  ascribing  the  for- 
mer as  he  may  one  day  learn  to  do  exclusively 
to  celestial,  the  latter  exclusively  to  infernal  in- 
fluence. The  word  is  often  viciously  used  as  a 
synonyme  of  spiritual  goodness,  as  when  we 
say,  "  A  is  a  very  moral  man,"  meaning  a  just 
one  ;  or,  "  B  is  a  very  immoral  man,"  meaning 
an  unjust  one.  No  man  can  be  either  good  or 
evil,  either  just  or  unjust,  but  by  virtue  of  his 
morality ;  /.  e.  unless  he  have  selfhood  or  free- 
dom entitling  him  to  own  his  action.  This  is  a 
conditio  sine  qua  non.     The  action  by  which  he 


4  The   IntroduBion. 

becomes  pronounced  either  the  one  sort  of  man 
or  the  other  could  not  be  his  action,  and  conse- 
quently could  never  afford  a  basis  for  his  spirit- 
ual development,  unless  he  possessed  this  origi- 
nal moral  force,  or  strict  neutrality  with  respect 
to  heaven  and  hell ;  but  would  on  the  contrary 
be  an  effect  in  every  case  of  overpowering 
spiritual  influence.  We  should  be  very  care- 
ful, therefore,  not  to  confound  the  condition  of 
an  event  with  the  event  itself,  as  we  do  when 
we  call  the  good  man  moral,  and  deny  morality 
to  the  evil  man.  For  if  the  good  man  alone 
be  moral,  while  the  evil  man  is  immoral,  then 
morality  ceases  to  be  any  longer  the  distinctive 
badge  of  human  nature  itselfj  which  separates 
it  from  all  lower  natures  (so  furnishing  a  plat- 
form for  God's  spiritual  descent  into  it),  and 
becomes  the  mere  arbitrary  endowment  of  cer- 
tain persons.  The  error  in  question  originates 
in,  at  least  is  greatly  promoted  by,  our  habit 
of  calling  the  decalogue  "the  moral  law."  As 
the  law  is  instinct  with  an  ineffable  Divine  sanc- 
tity, we  get  at  last  to  think  that  the  word  which 
we  so  commonly  couple  with  it  partakes  of 
right  the  same  sanctity,  and  accordingly  call 
only  the  man  who  obeys  it  moral,  while  he 
who  disobeys  it  is  immoral.  In  point  of  fact, 
however,  morality  means  nothing  more  nor  less 
than  that  state  of  natural  neutrality  or  indiffer- 
ence to  good  and  evil,  to  heaven  and  hell,  which 
distinguishes  man  from  all  other  existence,  and 
endows  him  alone  with  selfhood  or  freedom. 
Thus  the  term  properly  designates  our  natural 


The  Introdu^ion.  5 

majority  or  manhood,  what  every  man,  as  man, 
possesses  in  common  with  every  other  man. 

By  reUgion  I  mean  —  what  is  invariably 
meant  by  the  term  where  the  thing  itself  still 
exists  —  such  a  conscience  on  man's  part  of  a 
forfeiture  of  the  Divine  favor,  as  perpetually 
urges  him  to  make  sacrifices  of  his  ease,  his 
convenience,  his  wealth,  and  if  need  be  his  life, 
in  order  to  restore  himselfj  if  so  it  be  possible, 
to  that  favor.  This  is  religion  in  its  literal 
form  ;  natural  religion ;  religion  as  it  stands 
authenticated  by  the  universal  instincts  of  the 
race,  before  it  has  undergone  a  spiritual  con- 
version into  life,  and  while  claiming  still  a 
purely  ritual  embodiment.  It  is  however  in 
this  gross  form  the  germ  of  all  humane  cul- 
ture. Accordingly  we  sometimes  use  the  term 
in  an  accommodated  sense,  /.  e.  to  express  the 
spiritual  results  with  which  religion  is  fraught 
rather  than  the  mere  carnal  embodiment  it  first 
of  all  offers  to  such  results.  Thus  the  apostle 
James  says :  Pure  and  undefiled  religion  ("/.  e.^ 
religion  viewed  no  longer  as  a  letter,  but  as  a 
spirit),  is  to  visit  the  fatherless  and  the  widow, 
and  keep  oneself  unspotted  from  the  world  (/. 
f.,  has  exclusive  reference  to  the  lifej.  We  also 
say  proverbially,  handsome  is  that  handsome 
does ;  not  meaning  of  course  to  stretch  the 
word  handsome  out  of  its  literal  dimensions,  but 
only  by  an  intelligible  metonomy  of  body  for 
soul,  or  what  is  natural  for  what  is  spiritual,  to 
express  in  a  compendious  way  the  superiority 
of  moral  to  physical  beauty.     My  reader  will 


6  The   Introdu^ion. 

always  understand  me,  then,  as  using  the  word 
rehgion  in  its  strictly  literal  signification,  to  in- 
dicate our  ritual  or  ceremonious  homage  to  the 
Divine  name. 

Now  morality  and  religion,  thus  interpreted, 
are  regarded  on  my  title-page  as  concurring  to 
promote  the  evolution  of  man's  spiritual  destiny 
on  earth. 

Man's  destiny  on  earth,  as  I  am  led  to  con- 
ceive  it,  consists  m  the  reahzation  ot"a  perfect 
Sbciety^TellowsHip,  or  "BrotEerhbod  aiiTbng  rneii, 
proceeding  upon  such  a  complete  Divine  subju- 
gation in  the  bosom  of  the  race,  first  of  self-love 
to  brotherly  love,  and  then  of  both  loves  to  uni- 
versal love  or  the  love  of  God,  as  will  amount 
to  a  regenerate  nature  in   man,  by  converting 
i  first  his  merely  natural  consciousness,  which  is 
I  one   of    comparative   isolation    and    impotence, 
into  a  social  consciousness,  which  is  one  of  com- 
i  parative  omnipresence  and    omnipotence;    and 
1  then   and   thereby  exalting  his   moral  freedom, 
which  is  a  purely  negative  one,  into  an  aesthetic 
or  positive  form  :    so  making    spontaneity  and 
not  will,  delight  and  no  longer  obligation,  the 
spring  of  his  activity. 

But  morality  and  religion  are  further  regarded 
on  the  title-page  as  bearing,  in  the  evolution  of 
the  spiritual  destiny  of  man  on  earth,  the  rela- 
tion respectively  of  substance  and  shadow.  It 
only  remains  that  I  explicate  this  point,  in  order 
to  put  in  the  reader's  hands  the  clew  to  my  entire 
thought. 

A  shadow   is  a   phenomenon  of  vision  pro- 


The   lntrodu5iion.  7 

duced  by  some  body  intercepting  the  light. 
Thus  the  shadow  of  the  tree  upon  the  lawn  is 
an  effect  of  the  tree  intercepting  the  sun's  rays. 
My  shadow  on  the  wall  is  an  effect  of  my  body 
intercepting  the  rays  of  the  candle,  and  so  forth. 
Evidently  then  three  things  concur  to  constitute 
a  shadow:  1.  a  light ;  2.  an  opaque  body  which 
drinks  up  or  refuses  to  transmit  its  rays  ;  3.  a 
background  or  suitable  plane  of  projection  on 
which  such  refusal  becomes  stamped.  Thus  the 
shadow  which  anything  casts  is  strictly  propor- 
tionate to  its  power  of  absorbing  the  light,  or 
appropriating  it  to  itself:  which  is  only  saying, 
in  other  words,  that  the  shadow  of  a  thing  is 
the  exact  measure  of  its  finiteness  or  imperfec- 
tion, /".  e.  of  its  destitution  of  true  being.  And 
this  remark  prepares  us  to  ask  what  purpose 
the  shadow  serves,  what  intellectual  use  it 
renders. 

Obviously  the  use  or  purpose  of  shadows  is 
to  attest  finite  substance,  or  separate  between 
phenomenal  and  real  existence.  Real  existence 
is  that  which  exists  in  itself,  being  vitalized 
from  within.  Phenomenal  existence  is  that 
which  exists  only  by  virtue  of  its  implication 
in  something  not  itself,  being  vitalized  wholly 
from  without.  In  short  real  existence  is  spir- 
itual ;  phenomenal  existence  natural.  So  far  as 
I  am  spiritual,  that  is,  to  all  the  extent  of  my 
jESthetic  or  spontaneous  life,  I  am  a  real  exist- 
ence, possessing  life  in  myself  So  far  as  I  am 
simply  natural,  that  is,  to  all  the  extent  of  my 
instinctual  and  voluntary  life,  I  am  a  phenome- 


8  The   Intro duBion. 

nal  existence,  deriving  my  life  from  without. 
My  spiritual  manhood  consequently  casts  no 
shadow.  Whatsoever  I  do  spontaneously;  what- 
soever I  do  in  obedience  to  the  inspiration  of 
Beauty;  whatsoever  I  do,  in  short,  from  individ- 
ual taste  or  attraction  in  opposition  to  the  com- 
mon instinct  of  self-preservation  ;  is  good  and 
beautiful  in  itself,  is  positively  or  infinitely  good, 
as  being  without  any  contrast  or  oppugnancy 
of  evil.  But^my  physical  and  moral  existence 
npvpp  fails  t(7_^ix3Ject'^r"shadovv^  Xet  me  be  as 
beautiful  physically  as  Venus  or  Apollo,  still  I 
am  not  really  or  positively,  but  only  actually  or 
apparently,  so  ;  as  by  contrast  with  some  oppo- 
site ugliness.  Let  me  be  morally  as  good  as  all 
saints  and  angels,  it  is  yet  not  a  good  which  is 
positive  or  stands  by  itself,  but  one  which  stands 
in  the  opposition  of  evil.  In  short,  my  beauty 
in  the  one  case,  and  my  goodness  in  the  other, 
is  finite ;  and  like  all  finite  existence  claims  its 
attendant  and  attesting  shadow. 

Clearly,  then,  the  purpose  of  shadows  is  to 
attest  finite  or  imperfect  existence,  existence 
which  does  not  involve  its  own  substance.  The 
shadow  which  the  tree  casts  upon  the  lawn,  and 
that  which  my  body  projects  upon  the  wall  be- 
hind me,  are  a  mute  confession  on  the  part  of 
body  and  tree  that  they  are  purely  finite  and 
phenomenal  existences:  that  while  they  sensibly 
appear  to  be  in  themselves,  their  being  is  yet  in 
something  very  superior  to  themselves.  Seek 
this  tree  a  few  years  hence,  and  vou  will  find  no 
vestige   of  it   remaining.     Ask  for  this   body  a 


The   Intro du5lion.  9 

few  months  hence,  possibly,  and  it  will  be  in- 
distinguishable from  the  dust  of  the  earth.  This 
is  what  the' shadow  invariably  says  :  —  that  the 
substance  which  projects  it  is  a  mere  appear- 
ance to  the  senses,  not  a  reality  to  the  philo- 
sophic understanding;  and  that  if  we  would 
penetrate  the  world  of  realities  we  must  trans- 
cend the  realm  of  sense,  the  finite  realm,  and 
enter  that  of  mind  or  spirit. 

We  now  fairly  discern  the  constitution  of 
the  shadow,  and  what  is  its  rational  scope  and 
significance ;  and  are  thus  prepared  to  interpret 
the  greatest  of  shadows  which  we  call  Religion, 
and  which  falls  everywhere  across  the  page  of 
human  history  darkening  the  face  of  day,  turn- 
ing the  fairest  promise  of  nature  to  blight,  un- 
dermining the  most  towering  pride  of  morality 
by  a  subtle  conscience  of  sin,  and  forbidding 
man  to  content  himself  with  a  righteousness,  a 
peace  and  a  power  which  shall  be  anything  less 
than  Divine. 

The  reader  recalls  the  constitution  of  the 
shadow,  namely,  that  it  is  always  an  effect 
of  some  opaque  body  intercepting  the  rays  of 
light.  Thus  the  shadow  which  the  tree  projects 
upon  the  lawn  is  an  effect  of  the  tree  intercept- 
ing the  sun's  rays ;  and  the  shadow  of  my  per- 
son on  the  wall  an  effect  of  my  body  intercept- 
ing the  rays  of  the  lamp.  In  like  manner 
precisely  this  stupendous  shadow  designated  by 
the  name  of  Religion,  is  an  effect  produced  by 
our  moral  consciousness  intercepting  the  rays 
of  the   Divine  Truth  as  they  shine  forth   from 


10  The  IntroduElion. 

man's  social  destiny.  The  three  elements  which 
determine  its  constitution  as  a  shadow  are  thus 
distributed:  History  being  the  sole  field  of  its 
projection;  Morality  the  opaque  substance  which 
alone  projects  it;  and  the  Social  principle,  the 
principle  of  a  perfect  society  fellowship  or  broth- 
erhood among  men,  being  the  great  Divine  light, 
of  whose  obscuration  by  morality  religion  has 
always  been  at  once  the  shadow  and  the  scourge. 
So  much  definition  seems  due  by  way  of  pref- 
ace in  vindication  of  the  title  of  my  book,  or 
in  order  to  apprise  my  reader  that  I  regard  Re- 
ligion and  Morality  as  respectively  shadow  and 
substance  in  their  relation  to  the  social  develop- 
ment of  the  race.  Society  —  fellowship — equal- 
ity—  fraternity,  whatever  name  you  give  it,  is 
the  central  sun  of  human  destiny,  originating  all 
its  motion,  and  determining  the  pathway  of  its 
progress  towards  infinite  Love  and  Wisdom. 
Morality  and  Religion  together  constitute  the 
subject-earth  of  self-love  which  revolves  about 
this  centre,  now  in  light  now  in  shade;  morality 
being  the  illuminated  side  of  that  love,  religion 
its  obscured  side;  the  one  constituting  the  splen- 
dor of  its  day,  the  other  the  darkness  of  its  night. 
Morality  is  the  summer  lustihood  and  luxuriance 
of  self-love,  clothing  its  mineral  ribs  with  vege- 
table grace,  permeating  its  rigid  trunk  with  sap, 
decorating  its  gnarled  limbs  with  foliage,  glori- 
fying every  reluctant  virgin  bud  and  every  mod- 
est wifely  blossom  into  rich  ripe  motherly  fruit. 
Religion  is  the  icy  winter  which  blights  this 
summer  fertility,  which  arrests  the  ascent  of  its 


T^he  Introdu^ion.  1 1 

vivifying  sap,  and  humbles  its  superb  life  to  the 
ground,  in  the  interests  of  a  spring  that  shall  be 
perennial,  and  of  autumns  bursting  with  imperish- 
able fruit.  In  other  words,  religion  has  no  sub- 
stantive force.  Her  sole  errand  on  earth  has 
been  to  dog  the  footsteps  of  morality,  to  humble 
the  pride  of  selfhood  which  man  derives  from 
nature,  and  so  soften  his  interiors  to  the  recep- 
tion of  Divine  Truth,  as  that  truth  stands  ful- 
filled in  the  organization  of  human  equality  or 
fellowship. 

The  backbone  of  morality  has  long  been 
providentially  broken.  The  moral  force  men 
once  had,  the  power  of  controlling  natural  ap- 
petite and  passion,  has  abated,  and  in  its  place 
has  come  a  sense  of  God's  presence  in  Nature,  and 
the  aspiration  to  realize  in  life  the  infinite  Beauty 
which  she  reveals.  Almost  no  one  is  now  strong 
by  himself,  strong  against  the  floods  of  natural 
arrogance  and  cupidity  which  are  sure  to  assail 
him,  but  only  by  association  with  others.  Scarce- 
ly any  one  resists  the  temptation  to  which  he  is 
naturally  prone  on  religious  grounds,  or  from  a 
sentiment  of  reverence  to  the  Divine  name,  but 
only  on  social  grounds  or  from  a  sentiment  of 
what  is  due  to  good-fellowship.  The  failure  to 
see  this  great  change  in  human  nature,  and  to 
organize  it  betimes  in  appropriate  institutions, 
is  what  keeps  us  in  this  state  of  public  and 
private  demoralization,  which  has  at  last  resulted 
in  the  downfall  of  our  political  edifice.  See 
what  thorough-paced  unconscious  scoundrels  we 
have  long  had  for  politicians.     Observe  how  apt 


1 2  'The  lntrodu5lion. 

our  men  in  office  are  to  lend  themselves  to  atro- 
cious jobbery;  how  incessantly  public  and  pri- 
vate trusts  are  betrayed;  how  our  clergy  in  such 
large  numbers  habitually  emasculate  and  stultify 
the  gospel,  in  order  to  adapt  it  to  the  dainty  ears 
of  the  fierce  worldlings  who  underpin  their  ec- 
clesiastical consequence ;  how  ostentation,  un- 
bridled luxury  of  every  sort,  and  the  shameless 
apery  of  foreign  class-pretension,  even  down  to 
the  decorating  our  imported  servants  with 
imported  liveries,  are  corrupting  us  from  our 
original  democratic  simplicity  ;  how  rapidly 
immodesty,  dissipation,  insolence,  and  the  most 
unblushing  egotism  are  vulgarizing  the  man- 
ners, hardening  the  visages,  and  hopelessly  blast- 
ing the  hereditary  remains  of  innocence  of  our 
rich  young  men  and  women  ;  —  and  who  can 
doubt  that  Jeff  Davis,  Joe  Smith,  filibuster 
Walker,  secretary  Floyd,  James  Buchanan,  and 
all  the  other  dismal  signs  and  portents  of  our 
current  political  and  religious  life,  have  been 
only  so  many  providential  scourges  sent  to 
devastate  and  consume  a  world  long  ripe  for 
the  Divine  judgment  ^ 

The  only  possible  explanation  of  the  existing 
crisis  in  human  affairs,  everywhere  indeed,  com- 
patible with  the  Divine  sovereignty,  is,  that  the 
moral  force  in  man  no  longer  subserves  the 
great  spiritual  uses  which  once  sanctified  and 
sweetened  it ;  that  the  mission  which  was  once 
Divinely  given  it  of  nurturing  men  for  the  skies 
has  been  revoked  and  put  in  more  competent 
hands.     This  to  my  judgment  is  as  plain  as  any- 


T^he   Introduction.  1 3 

thing  can  well  be.  The  moral  force  was  never 
anything  but  a  scaffolding  for  God's  spiritual 
house  in  the  soul;  it  was  never  designed  to  give 
permanent  substance  but  only  temporary  form 
to  God's  finished  work  in  human  nature  ;  and 
when  accordingly  it  ceases  to  look  upon  itself 
in  this  subordinate  plight,  and  insists  upon  be- 
ing treated  not  as  the  scaffolding  but  as  the 
house,  not  as  the  mould  but  as  the  substance  to 
be  moulded,  not  as  the  matrix  but  as  the  gem, 
in  short,  not  as  an  accessory  but  as  a  principal, 
it  loses  even  this  justification  and  becomes  a 
positive  nuisance.  The  social  sentiment,  the 
sense  of  a  living  organic  unity  among  men,  is 
accordingly  fast  absorbing  it  or  taking  it  up 
into  its  own  higher  circulation,  whence  it  will 
be  reproduced  in  every  regenerate  aesthetic  form. 
Art  is  the  resurgent  form  of  human  activity. 
The  artist  or  producer  is  the  only  regenerate  im- 
age of  God  in  nature,  the  only  living  revelation 
of  the  Lord  on  earth.  Society  itself  will  erelong 
release  her  every  subject  from  that  responsibility 
to  his  own  material  interests  which  has  hitherto 
degraded  human  life  to  the  ground,  and  by  provid- 
ing for  his  honest  and  orderly  physical  subsistence, 
leave  his  heart  and  mind  and  hand  free  to  the 
only  inspiration  they  spontaneously  acknowledge, 
—  that  of  infinite  Goodness,  Truth,  and  Beauty. 
This  most  profound  and  intimate  life  of  God  in 
our  nature  is  groping  its  way  to  more  and  more 
vivid  consciousness  in  us  every  day ;  and  the 
consequence  is  that  we  see  the  proud  old  Pagan 
ideal  of  moral  virtue,  a  virtue  which  inheres  in 


14  'T^he   Introduction. 

the  subject  himself  as  finitely  constituted  or  dif- 
ferenced from  all  other  men,  giving  place  to  the 
humble  and  harmless  Christian  ideal  of  a  purely 
spiritual  virtue  in  man,  a  virtue  which  inheres 
in  him  only  as  he  becomes  infinitely  constituted, 
or  united  with  all  other  men,  by  the  unlimited 
indwelling  of  God  in  his  nature.  The  Pagan 
goodness  proceeds  upon  self-denial,  and  hence 
implies  merit.  The  Christian  goodness  proceeds 
upon  the  frankest  and  fullest  possible  self-asser- 
tion, and  hence  implies  boundless  humility  or 
gratitude.  "After  those  days,  saith  the  Lord,  I 
will  put  my  law  in  their  inward  parts,  and  write 
it  in  their  hearts." 

As  the  shadow  obeys  the  law  of  the  substance, 
so  religion  is  bound  to  undergo  a  proportionate 
modification  with  that  of  morality.  This  is  why 
religion  in  the  old  virile  sense  of  the  word  has 
disappeared  from  sight,  and  become  replaced  by 
a  feeble  Unitarian  sentimentality.  The  old  re- 
ligion involved  a  conscience  of  the  profoundest 
antagonism  between  God  and  the  worshipper, 
which  utterly  refused  to  be  placated  by  any- 
thing short  of  an  unconditional  pledge  of  the 
utmost  Divine  mercy.  The  ancient  believer  felt 
himself  sheerly  unable  to  love  God,  or  do  any- 
thing else  towards  his  salvation,  were  it  only  the 
lifting  of  a  finger.  To  un-love  was  his  only 
true  loving,  to  un-learn  his  only  true  learning,  to 
un-do  his  only  true  doing.  The  modern  relig- 
ionist is  at  once  amused  and  amazed  at  these 
curious  arch^ological  beginnings  of  his  own  his- 
tory.    He  feels  towards  them  as  a  virtuoso  does 


The  lntrodu5lion.  l  ^ 

towards  what  is  decidedly  rococo  in  fashion,  and 
not  seldom  bestows  a  word  of  munificent  Phari- 
saic patronage  upon  them,  such  as  the  opulent 
Mr.  Ruskin  dispenses  to  uncouth  specimens  of 
early  religious  Art.  He  has  not  the  slightest 
conception  of  himself  as  a  spiritual  form  in- 
wardly enlivened  by  all  God's  peace  and  inno- 
cence. On  the  contrary,  he  feels  himself  to  be 
a  strictly  moral  or  self-possessed  being,  vivified 
exclusively  by  his  own  action,  or  the  relations 
he  voluntarily  assumes  with  respect  to  human 
and  Divine  law.  The  modern  believer  aspires 
to  be  a  saint;  the  ancient  one  abhorred  to  be 
anything  but  a  sinner.  The  former  looks  back 
accordingly  to  some  fancied  era  of  what  he  calls 
conversion  :  /,  e.  when  he  passed  from  death  to 
life.  The  latter  was  blissfully  content  to  forget 
himself,  and  looked  forward  exclusively  to  his 
Lord's  promised  spiritual  advent  in  all  the  forms 
of  a  redeemed  nature.  The  one  is  an  absolutely 
changed  man,  no  longer  to  be  confounded  with 
the  world,  and  meet  for  the  Divine  approbation. 
The  other  is  a  totally  unchanged  one,  only  more 
dependent  than  he  ever  was  before  upon  the 
unmitigated  Divine  mercy.  The  one  feels  sure 
of  going  to  heaven  if  the  Lord  observes  the  dis- 
tinctions which  his  own  grace  ordains  in  human 
character.  The  other  feels  sure  of  going  to  hell 
unless  the  Lord  is  blessedly  indifferent  to  those 
distinctions. 

I  might  multiply  these  contrasts  to  any  length, 
but  my  desire  is  only  briefly  to  indicate  how 
very  near  and  intimate  God's  spiritual  approxi- 


l6  'The  IntroduElion. 

mation  to  our  nature  must  have  become,  in 
order  to  justify  those  hopes  of  the  purely  natu- 
ral heart  towards  him.  It  is  impossible  to  go  to 
the Church  in ,  and  observe  how  skil- 
fully and  yet  unconsciously  the  gifted  minister 
of  that  parish  appeals  to  all  that  is  most  selfish 
and  most  worldly  in  the  bosoms  of  his  hearers,  in 
order  to  build  them  up  a  fragrant  temple  for  the 
Divine  indwelling,  without  feeling  one's  heart 
melt  with  adoration  of  the  Infinite  Love  which 
is  taking  to  itself  at  last  the  riches  of  the  earth, 
and  making  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  also 
forever  its  own.  In  short,  both  the  world  and 
the  church  from  having  been  very  dense  are  be- 
coming almost  transparent  masks  of  God's  inef- 
fable designs  of  mercy  to  universal  man,  and 
are  helping  along  in  their  blind  delirious  way 
the  speedy  advent  of  a  scientific  human  society 
or  brotherhood  upon  earth.  If  accordingly  my 
reader  discover  as  he  conceives  in  the  progress 
of  my  book  any  animus  of  hostility  either  to  the 
polite  or  the  religious  world,  he  will  do  me  the 
justice  to  believe  that  such  appearance  is  only 
the  negative  or  literal  aspect  of  a  love,  which 
on  its  positive  or  spiritual  side  embraces  univer- 
sal man. 

Let  me  indeed  insist  on  this  justice.  It  is 
evident  enough  throughout  my  book,  of  course, 
that  I  assail  ritual  or  professional  religion  with 
undissembled  good-will ;  yet  it  is  quite  equally 
evident,  I  hope,  that  I  never  for  a  moment  do 
so  in  the  interest  of  irreligion,  but  exclusively 
in    the    interest   of  its   own    imprisoned    spirit. 


The  Introdu^ion.  17 

Daily  I  visit  this  sepulchre  in  which  the  Lord 
lay  buried.  I  find  the  spiced  linen  garments  in 
which  he  was  embalmed  reverently  exhibited, 
and  the  napkin  that  was  about  his  sacred  head 
tenderly  folded  away  and  cherished ;  but  no  fa- 
miliar feature  of  his  vanished  form  remains ; 
he  is  indeed  no  longer  there  but  risen.  All 
that  was  late  so  helpless  in  him  has  become 
glorified  and  triumphant;  all  that  was  late  so 
human  and  finite  has  become  Divine  and  infi- 
nite. I  find,  in  other  words,  any  amount  of  literal 
or  personal  homage  addressed  to  Christ  in  the 
church ;  but  never  a  glance  that  I  can  discern 
of  spiritual  recognition.  And  yet  this  alone  is 
real  and  living;  all  the  rest  is  dramatic  and 
dead.  Let  us  call  him  Lord !  Lord !  as  much 
as  we  please,  and  lift  up  the  devoutest  possible 
eyes  to  some  imaginary  throne  he  is  supposed 
to  occupy  in  the  super-celestial  solitudes ;  we 
are  utterly  inexcusable  for  so  doing,  since  if  we 
believe  his  own  most  pointed  and  memorable 
counsels,  (Matthew  xxv.  31-46,)  he  is  no  longer 
to  be  found  spiritually  isolated  from,  but  only 
most  intimately  associated  with,  the  business  and 
bosom  of  universal  man :  that  is  to  say,  only 
wherever  there  is  hunger  to  be  filled,  thirst  to  be 
slaked,  homeless  want  to  be  housed,  nakedness 
to  be  clad,  sickness  to  be  relieved,  prison-doors 
to  be  opened. 

No  doubt  the  church  will  answer  that  a  man's 
soul  is  worth  more  to  him  than  all  the  world  be- 
side ;  that  God  busies  himself  with  the  spiritual 
interests  of  humanity  rather  than   its    material 


1 8  'The   hitrodu5lion. 

interests.  Unquestionably.  But  how  if  He  can- 
not deal  directly  with  its  spiritual  interests  with- 
out impairing  them?  How  if  His  only  safe 
way  of  dealing  with  them,  is  to  do  so  indirect- 
ly, that  is,  by  means  of  its  material  interests'? 
Of  course  no  reasonable  man  can  doubt  that 
God's  real  and  primary  delight  is  to  appease  the 
spiritual  wants,  and  assuage  the  spiritual  woes 
of  humanity,  which  are  accurately  symbolized 
under  these  images  of  mere  material  destitution 
and  distress.  But  then  we  must  recollect  that 
He  is  utterly  unable  to  effect  these  ends  save  by 
the  mediation  of  his  own  truth,  or  in  so  far  as 
our  private  individual  commerce  with  him  has 
been  organized  upon,  and  energized  by,  a  pre- 
vious recognition  of  his  boundless  presence  and 
operation  in  human  nature  itself  God's  private 
mercies  to  us,  in  other  words,  do  not  prejudice, 
but  on  the  contrary  irresistibly  exact  or  presup- 
pose, this  grander  public  operation  of  His,  this 
stupendous  work  of  redemption  which  he  has 
practised  in  our  very  nature  itself,  as  the  basis 
of  their  own  vitality.  Let  me  elucidate  this 
proposition  a  little. 

Whatever  be  the  Lord's  unmistakeable  good- 
will towards  the  spiritual  or  immortal  conjunc- 
tion of  every  individual  soul  of  man  with  him- 
self, it  is  nevertheless  evident  that  such  a  result 
to  be  permanent  can  never  be  forced,  but  must 
conciliate  in  every  case  the  legitimate  instincts 
of  the  soul,  which  are  freedom  and  rationality. 
If  God  would  have  my  love  and  have  it  eter- 
nally, he  must  exhibit  his  perfect  worthiness  to 


The   IntroduSfion.  1 9 

be  loved  in  such  a  way  as  to  take  captive  my 
heart  and  understanding.  Now  as  naturally 
constituted,  or  when  left  to  myself,  I  am  a  being 
of  consummate  selfishness  and  covetousness.  I 
unconsciously  exalt  myself  above  all  mankind, 
and  would  grasp,  if  that  were  possible,  the  riches 
of  the  universe.  It  were  obvious  and  unmixed 
deviltry  simply  to  condemn  this  natural  make 
of  mine,  or  turn  it  over  to  ruthless  punish- 
ment. It  is,  on  the  other  hand,  unmixed  divin- 
ity to  condescend  to  these  natural  limitations,  to 
come  down  to  the  level  and  breathe  the  atmos- 
phere of  these  overpowering  lusts,  to  live  in  the 
daily  and  hourly  intimacy  of  their  illusions,  their 
insanities,  their  ferocities  and  impurities,  until  at 
length  by  patiently  separating  what  is  relatively 
good  in  them  from  what  is  relatively  evil,  and 
then  subjecting  the  latter  to  the  unlimited  ser- 
vice of  the  former,  the  two  warring  elements 
become  bound  together  in  the  unity  of  a  new 
or  regenerate  natural  personality,  in  which  in- 
terest will  spontaneously  effect  what  principle 
has  hitherto  vainly  enjoined ;  or  self-love  accom- 
plish with  ease  what  benevolence  has  only  been 
able  hitherto  weakly  to  dream  of  accomplishing. 
If  now  we  appeal  to  the  word  of  God,  which  is 
Christian  doctrine,  this  is  precisely  what  God 
does ;  and  if  we  appeal  to  his  work,  which  is  the 
history  of  Christendom,  the  response  is  equally 
full  and  clear.  Revelation  and  History  both  alike 
proclaim  with  unmistakeable  emphasis  that  God 
chooses  the  foolish  things  of  the  world  to  con- 
found the  wise,  the  weak  things  to  confound 


20  l^he   Introdu^ion. 

the  mighty,  and  base  things  and  things  which 
men  despise,  yea  and  things  which  are  not,  hath 
God  chosen,  to  bring  to  nought  estabhshed 
things,  in  order  that  no  flesh  should  exalt  itself 
in  his  presence. 

This  alone  is  why  I  love  God,  if  indeed  I 
do  at  all  love  Him.  I  hate  Him  with  a  cordial 
hatred  —  of  this  at  least  I  am  very  sure — for 
his  alleged  incommunicable  infinitude,  for  that 
cold  and  solitary  grandeur  which  my  natural 
reason  ascribes  to  Him,  and  which  entitles  Him, 
according  to  the  same  authority,  to  exact  the 
endless  servile  homage  of  us  poor  worms  of  the 
dust.  For  all  this  difference  between  God  and 
me  as  affirmed  by  my  natural  deism, — which  is 
my  reason  unillumined  by  revelation,  —  my 
crushed  and  outraged  affections  writhe  with  un- 
speakable animosity  towards  him.  It  is  only 
when  I  read  the  gospel  of  his  utter  condescension 
to  my  foul  and  festering  nature,  and  discern  the 
lucent  lines  of  his  providence  in  the  world  illus- 
trating and  authenticating  every  word  and  tone 
of  that  gospel, — it  is  only,  in  other  words,  when 
I  see  how  sheerly  impersonal  and  creative  his  love 
is,  /.  (?.,  how  incapable  of  regarding  itself  and  how 
irresistibly  communicative  of  its  own  blessedness 
to  whatsoever  is  not  itself,  to  whatsoever  is  most 
hostile  and  repugnant  to  itself,  that  my  soul 
catches  her  first  glimpse  of  the  uncreated  holi- 
ness, and  heart  and  head  and  hand  conspire  in 
helpless,  speechless,  motionless  adoration. 

In  short,  no  one  can  love  God  simply  by 
wishing  to  love  Him,  still  less  by  feeling  it   a 


The  Introdu^ion.  21 

duty  to  love  Him.  At  this  rate  one  could  never 
love  his  fellow-man  even,  but  would  come  at 
last  infallibly  to  hate  him.  In  other  words, 
love  is  never  voluntary  but  always  spontaneous. 
Its  objective  or  unconscious  element  invariably 
controls  its  subjective  or  conscious  one.  I 
love  my  wife  or  child  not  by  any  force  of  my 
own,  but  by  virtue  altogether  of  a  force  which 
their  innocence  and  sweetness  lend  me.  It  is 
their  natural  or  cultivated  grace  which  empow- 
ers me  to  love ;  abstract  this,  and  I  should  be 
impotent  as  a  clod.  So  also  I  can  never  love 
God  by  any  force  of  my  own.  His  absolute 
worth  indeed  makes  it  even  more  impossible 
for  me  to  love  Him,  than  my  wife's  or  child's 
relative  imperfection  makes  it  impossible  for  me 
to  love  them :  namely,  by  removing  Him  spirit- 
ually to  such  a  distance  from  me  as  to  make 
hatred  rather  than  love  towards  Him,  an  instinct- 
ive dictate  of  my  own  self-respect.  If  then  I 
can  never  hope  to  love  God  by  my  own  force. 
He  himself  must  enable  me  to  love  Him.  How 
shall  He  do  this  without  overpowering  my  con- 
scious freedom  or  rationality  ?  Why  simply  by 
taking  upon  Himself  the  conditions  of  my  na- 
ture, or  coming  to  know  experimentally  how 
irresistibly  prone  the  finite  mind  is  by  the  mere 
fact  of  its  finiteness  to  lie,  to  steal,  to  commit 
adultery  and  murder,  in  order  that,  being  thus 
tempted  like  as  we  are,  yet  without  sin — being 
thus  touched  with  a  feeling  of  our  infirmities, 
and  yet  rigidly  self-debarred  from  the  actual  dis- 
order in  which  they  are  sure  to  terminate  with 


22  'The  lntrodu£fion, 

us  —  He  may  give  them  totally  new  and  unex- 
pected issues  in  harmony  with  His  own  univer- 
sality of  love  and  providence.  In  other  words, 
let  God  reveal  Himself  to  my  intelligence  as  a 
natural  man,  as  a  sympathetic  partaker  of  my 
own  corrupt  nature,  not  with  any  view  as  my 
natural  reason  alleges  to  condemn  and  denounce 
it,  but  only  to  purify  and  exalt  it  to  the  measure 
of  His  own  infinitude,  and  I  shall  necessarily 
love  Him,  love  Him  with  such  a  reality  and  in- 
tensity of  love  as  reconciles  me  even  to  my  past 
natural  animosity,  and  fills  me  moreover  with 
His  own  unspeakable  tenderness  towards  the 
possible  natural  animosity  of  all  mankind. 

This  briefly  stated  is  all  I  mean  by  saying  that 
our  private  or  individual  regeneration  is  wholly 
conditioned  upon  a  great  and  sincere  work  of 
redemption  accomplished  by  God  in  human  na- 
ture ;  so  that  every  really  regenerate  person, 
every  one  reconciled  in  heart  to  the  Divine 
ways,  feels  himself  an  unlimited  dependent  upon 
the  unbought  Divine  mercy,  and  scorns  nothing 
so  cordially  as  the  pretence  of  a  superior  person- 
al sanctity  in  the  Divine  regard,  to  that  of  the 
veriest  reptile  that  shares  and  illustrates  his  na- 
ture. 

And  this  will  also  explain  to  the  reader  why, 
in  the  progress  of  my  book,  I  have  felt  myself 
called  upon  to  deal  so  frankly  with  our  ritual 
or  professional  religion.  It  is  because  religion 
as  an  institution  no  longer  subserves  the  great 
human  uses  which  once  alone  consecrated  it, 
but  has  sunk  into  an  impudent  canonization  of 


The  lntrodu£lion.  23 

the  vulgarest  private  and  sectarian  pretension. 
It  has  so  completely  renounced  its  ancient  and 
purely  typical  sanctity,  and  challenges  nowa- 
days such  an  absolute  prestige,  or  prestige  in 
its  own  right,  to  men's  regard,  that  the  veracious 
public  witness  it  once  bore  to  the  truth  of  all 
men's  equal  and  utter  personal  alienation  and 
remoteness  from  God,  has  become  degraded 
into  the  lying  testimony  of  some  A,  B,  or  C's 
individual  regeneration  and  salvation.  From  a 
sincere  record  of  our  universal  natural  destitu- 
tion and  despair,  it  has  sunk  into  a  flattering 
witness  of  our  private  wealth,  of  our  strictly 
individual  assurance  or  presumption.  The  dis- 
tinctively spiritual  or  human  substance  which 
alone  sanctifies  religious  aspiration  and  saves  it 
from  blasphemy,  is  humility,  is  an  unaffected 
contrition  on  the  part  of  the  worshipper  for  the 
pride  and  rapacity  which  he  perceives  underly- 
ing his  finite  consciousness,  and  forever  separat- 
ing him  from  the  Divine.  In  short,  a  conscience 
of  death  is  the  sole  legitimate  flower  of  the  re- 
ligious experience;  death  to  every  cherished 
pretension  the  worshipper  feels  of  ever  being 
personally  any  purer  better  holier  in  the  Divine 
sight  than  any  criminal  that  ever  was  hung. 

Scarcely  a  vestige  of  this  most  ancient  truth 
survives  in  our  modern  profession;  or  if  it  does, 
survives  in  chronic  not  in  acute  form.  To 
"experience  religion,"  or  "become  converted," 
means  now  not  what  it  once  meant,  to  pass  from 
the  noon-tide  radiance  of  natural  force  and  self- 
confidence  into  the  grimmest  midnight  of  spirit- 


24  The  IntroduBion. 

ual  impotence  and  self-distrust,  but  all  simply  to 
jump  from  a  grossly  absurd  fear  of  God's  per- 
sonal enmity  to  us  grounded  on  our  moral  de- 
linquencies, or  perhaps  our  purely  ritual  unclean- 
ness,  into  a  more  grossly  absurd  hope  of  His 
personal  complacency  towards  us,  based  upon 
some  inward  mystical  change  which  He  himself 
has  arbitrarily  wrought  in  us.  Thus  viewed, 
religion  no  longer  witnesses  to  the  truth  of 
God's  immutable  perfection,  but  only  to  the 
capricious  operation  of  His  spirit  ordaining  cer- 
tain differences  in  human  character,  whereby 
one  man  becomes  avouched  in  his  proper  per- 
son an  heir  of  heaven,  another  stigmatized  as  a 
child  of  hell.  Look  at  the  social  consequences 
of  this  most  real  but  unrecognized  spiritual 
buffoonery,  how  inevitably  it  depresses  all  that 
is  sweet  and  modest  and  unexacting  in  manners, 
and  forces  into  conspicuity  whatsoever  is  for- 
ward, ungenerous,  and  despotic.  Look  at  any 
of  our  ecclesiastical  coteries,  and  observe  how 
torpid  grows  the  proper  spiritual  or  human  force 
of  its  members,  while  every  shabbiest  pattern 
of  a  formalist  is  radiant,  twittering,  and  alert 
with  preternatural  activity.  No  doubt  very 
many  of  the  clergy  are  personally  superior  to 
their  office,  and  feel  their  instinctual  modesty 
outraged  by  the  spirit  of  servility  and  adula- 
tion which  it  appears  to  have  the  faculty  of 
eliciting  on  the  part  of  their  adherents.  But 
how  can  they  help  themselves'?  Professional 
religion  means  the  claim  of  a  private  sanctity, 
of  a  strictly  personal  and  individual  worth  in 


The  Introduction.  25 

God's  sight,  by  which  the  subject  is  eternally 
differenced  from  other  men  ;  and  the  clergy  are 
the  protagonists  or  defenders  each  in  his  sect  of 
this  debased  state  of  the  public  mind,  so  that  to 
be  personally  flattered  and  cockered  and  excused 
and  apologized  for  out  of  all  reasonable  shape 
of  manhood,  by  precisely  the  style  of  people 
whose  opinions  they  least  value,  seems  above  all 
things  their  just  official  Nemesis  or  retribution. 
In  a  spiritual  point  of  view  the  clergy  are  most 
real  martyrs  to  their  perilous  calling. 

As  to  the  attitude  of  the  Divine  mind  towards 
the  separatist  or  Pharisaic  portion  of  the  world, 
/.  e.  towards  those  who  are  identified  with  the 
outward  profession  of  serving  Him,  the  New 
Testament  leaves  no  doubt  on  that  subject,  but 
ratifies  every  instinct  of  our  proper  humanity. 
The  parables  of  the  Prodigal  Son  and  of  the 
Publican  and  Pharisee  praying,  justify  every 
prevision  of  common  sense  in  the  premises. 
Surely  if  I  have  a  family  of  children  the  eldest 
of  whom  is  alone  legitimate,  and  therefore  alone 
entitled  to  my  name  and  estate,  while  all  the 
younger  children  are  bastards,  and  consequently 
destitute  of  all  legal  righteousness,  I  should  be 
a  worm  and  no  man,  if^  while  according  to  the 
former  his  fullest  legal  consideration,  I  did  not 
bestow  my  tenderest  and  ripest  affection  and 
indulgence  upon  the  latter.  If  my  acknowl- 
edged heir,  conceiving  himself  prejudiced  by 
this  action  on  my  part,  should  grow  angry  and 
reproach  me  thereupon,  saying,  "  Lo !  these 
many  years  do   I    serve    thee,   neither   have    I 


26  The  Introdu^ion. 

ever  transgressed  thy  commandments,  and  yet 
thou  hast  never  given  me  the  sHghtest  expres- 
sion of  thy  heart's  delight,  such  as  thou  art  now- 
lavishing  upon  those  others  who  have  wasted 
thy  substance  with  riotous  Hving:"  this  strain 
of  remonstrance  would  only  prove  how  essen- 
tially incompatible  legal  or  literal  heirship  is 
with  spiritual  heirship ;  how  infinitely  short  the 
most  faultless  moral  righteousness  falls  of  in- 
ward or  spiritual  innocence ;  but  it  would  never 
prove  me  unrighteous.  Nothing  could  be  easier 
for  me  than  to  show  my  dissatisfied  and  envi- 
ous offspring  that  I  had  at  all  events  done  him 
no  injustice.  I  should  say,  "  My  son,  I  leave 
it  to  yourself  to  estimate  the  claim  which  the 
service  you  boast  of  exerts  upon  my  heart,  now 
that  your  shameless  inhumanity  to  your  less  for- 
tunate brethren  reveals  even  to  your  own  eyes 
the  spirit  which  has  always  animated  that  ser- 
vice; a  spirit  of  unlimited  self-seeking,  of  low 
prudence  or  worldly  conformity,  befitting  indeed 
the  elder  son  (or  head),  but  totally  alien  to  the 
temper  of  the  younger  son  (or  heart).  The  ser- 
vice you  render  I  am  sure  of  at  all  times  [son^ 
thou  art  ever  with  me\  because  it  is  an  inter- 
ested service,  prompted  by  your  self-love  alone. 
It  is  the  homage  of  the  proud  self-righteous 
rapacious  head,  and  though  I  have  no  power 
and  no  desire  to  balk  its  legal  expectations  [and 
all  that  I  have  is  thine'^,  it  yet  awakens  in  my 
bosom  no  emotion  of  pleasure,  begets  no  throb 
of  gratified  paternal  affection.  It  is  the  homage 
of  the  heart  exclusively,  the  prodigal,  unright- 


The  lntrodu8ion.  27 

eous,  unexacting  heart  [/  will  say  unto  him. 
Father,  I  have  sinned  against  heaven  and  before 
thee,  and  am  no  more  worthy  to  be  called  thy 
son:  make  me  as  one  of  thy  hired  servants'] 
which  opens  up  the  responsive  fountains  of  my 
heart,  which  satisfies  the  hunger  and  thirst  of 
my  paternal  bosom,  and  irresistibly  compels 
therefore  every  answering  outward  demonstra- 
tion of  my  inmost  pride  and  joy,  of  my  ex- 
quisite spiritual  delight  and  blessedness.  You 
shall  have  accordingly  your  legal  deserts  to  the 
utmost,  all  that  you  have  bargained  for ;  all 
that  I  outwardly  possess  shall  be  yours,  while 
I  bestow  myself,  all  that  I  inwardly  am,  upon 
your  humbler  brethren." 

Thus  much  I  feel  called  upon  to  say  to  the 
reader  by  way  of  forewarning,  or  in  order  that 
he  may  observe  that  I  do  not  quarrel  with  the 
living  spirit  of  religion,  which  glows  in  every 
breast  of  man  where  God's  own  spirit  of  humil- 
ity, meekness,  equality,  fellowship,  is  cultivated 
and  reproduced  however  feebly;  but  only  with 
what  the  best  men  in  history  have  always  quar- 
relled with,  namely,  its  dead  and  putrid  body 
which  still  goes  unburied  and  taints  God's 
wholesome  air  with  its  baleful  exhalations.  Re- 
ligion disdains  any  longer  a  literal  or  ritual 
establishment.  It  claims  a  purely  living  and 
spiritual  embodiment,  such  as  flows  from  God's 
sanctifying  presence  and  animating  power  in 
every  form  of  spontaneous  human  action.  It 
has  no  longer  anything  to  do  accordingly  with 
churches  or  with  clergy,  with  sabbaths  or  with 


28  'T^he  Introduction. 

sacraments,  with  papacy  or  with  prelacy,  with 
Calvin  or  Socinus ;  but  only  with  a  heart  in  its 
subject  of  unaffected  love  to  all  mankind,  and 
unaffected  fellowship  consequently  with  every 
person  and  every  thing  however  convention- 
ally sacred  or  profane,  that  seeks  to  further  that 
love  by  the  earnest  distaste  disuse  and  undoing 
of  whatsoever  plainly  withstands  perverts  or 
abuses  it. 


AN    ESSAY 


PHYSICS    OF  CREATION. 


By  the  rivers  of  Babylon,  there  we  sat  down  ;  yea,  we  wept, 
when  we  remembered  Zion. 

We  hanged  our  harps  upon  the  willows  in  the  midst  thereof. 

For  there  they  that  carried  us  away  captive  required  of  us  a  song  ; 
and  they  that  wasted  us  required  of  us  mirth,  saying,  Sing  us  one  of 
the  songs  of  Zion. 

How  shall  we  sing  the  Lord's  song  in  a  strange  land  ? 

If  I  forget  thee,  O  Jerusalem,  let  my  right  hand  forget  her  cun- 
ning ! 

If  I  do  not  remember  thee,  let  my  tongue  cleave  to  the  roof  of 
my  mouth  ;  if  I  prefer  not  Jerusalem  above  my  chief  joy  ! 

Remember,  O  Lord,  the  children  of  Edom  in  the  day  of  Jerusa- 
lem ;  who  said,  Rase  it,  rase  it,  even  to  the  foundation  thereof. 

O  daughter  of  Babylon,  who  art  to  be  destroyed  ;  happy  shall  he 
be,  that  rewardeth  thee  as  thou  hast  served  us. 

Happy  shall  he  be  that  taketh  and  dasheth  thy  little  ones  against 
the  stones.  —  PsALM  cxxxvii. 


AN   ESSAY 


PHYSICS   OF   CREATION. 


CHAPTER   I. 

Many  of  my  friends  have  at  various  rimes 
asked  me  to  give  them  a  brief  statement  of  my 
views  as  to  the  practical  bearing  of  Sweden- 
borg's  writings  upon  the  intellect.  As  I  under- 
stand the  request,  they  do  not  care  to  have  a 
mere  recapitulation  of  Swedenborg's  intellectual 
principles,  for  these  are  palpable  to  sight  on 
every  page  of  his  books :  they  simply  seek  to 
know  what  judgment  I,  who  hold  these  prin- 
ciples to  be  rationally  indisputable,  feel  myself 
compelled  to  form  with  respect  to  their  prac- 
tical operation  in  the  realms  of  speculation  and 
action. 

Judgments  of  this  nature  must  vary  of  course 
according  to  the  various  temper  and  culture  of 
the  persons  who  render  them.  Truth  is  always 
modified  to  its  subject  by  his  own  states  of  life : 
/.  e.  by  the  attitude  of  his  heart  towards  Good. 
What  is  grapes  to  one  intelligence  is  thistles  to 
another,  and  the  bramble  bush  of  one  spiritual 
latitude  is  the  fig-tree  of  its  opposite.     To  the 


32  Relation  of  Swedenhorg 

pure  God  shows  himself  pure ;  to  the  froward 
he  shows  himself  froward.  "  A  man  receives," 
says  Swedenborg,  "  only  so  much  as  he  either 
has  of  himself,  or  makes  his  own  by  looking 
into  things  for  himself:  what  exceeds  these  lim- 
its passes  off"^ 

Interpreting  Swedenborg's  general  relation 
then  to  the  intellect  by  the  effect  his  books 
produce  upon  mine,  I  should  say  that  their 
direct  tendency  was,  to  assert  and  vindicate  such 
an  intimate  Divine  presence  and  operation  in 
the  lowest  depths  of  consciousness,  as  will  ere- 
long practically  obliterate  all  those  superficial 
differences  in  human  character  upon  which  our 
social  legislation  has  been  hitherto  exclusively 
based,  by  spiritually  shutting  up  all  men — good 
and  evil  alike — to  a  dependence  upon  God  so 
vital  and  absolute,  as  to  make  the  pretension  of 
independence  a  mark  of  spiritual  idiocy  and  death. 
Let  me  explain.  Human  society  —  what  lit- 
tle of  it  at  least  the  exigencies  of  Priest  and 
King,  of  church  and  state,  have  permitted  to 
get  body  or  become  visible  —  has  been  organ- 
ized in  all  the  past  upon  the  belief  of  a  radical 
diversity  in  human  nature,  a  fundamental  dis- 
tinction among  men  of  good  and  evil.  Society 
has  not  been  content  to  affirm  that  one  man 
was  good  and  another  evil,  as  they  stood  sever- 
ally related  to  herself,  that  is,  to  human  prog- 
ress. She  has  declared  them  to  be  absolutely 
good  or  evil,  /.  e.  good  and  evil  in  themselves, 
irrespective  of  their  relations  to  any  third  thing. 

1  Arc.  Cel.,  3803. 


to  the  Intellect.  33 

The  good  man  has  always  been  thought  to  be 
good  in  himself,  absolutely  good,  and  thus  even 
more  sure  of  attracting  the  Divine  complacency 
than  ours.  The  evil  man,  the  liar,  thief,  adul- 
terer, murderer,  has  always  been  regarded  as 
essentially,  or  in  himself,  a  worse  man  than  he 
who  refrains  from  these  odious  practices.  And 
society  accordingly  in  rewarding  the  one  and 
punishing  the  other,  as  the  law  of  self-preserva- 
tion has  hitherto  bound  her  to  do,  has  appar- 
ently never  doubted  that  she  was  performing 
a  work  of  absolute  righteousness,  permanently 
consonant  with  the  Divine  name ;  above  all,  has 
never  for  a  moment  suspected  that  the  glaring 
diversities  of  character  and  action  she  perpetu- 
ally signalized  were  all  the  while  the  fruit  ex- 
clusively of  her  own  immaturity. 

Now  Swedenborg's  writings  reverse  this  su- 
perficial judgment,  or  turn  it  into  a  mere  preju- 
dice on  our  part,  having  no  more  valid  basis 
than  any  other  superstition  which  our  devout 
but  unenlightened  reverence  has  temporarily 
hallowed.  His  writings  effectually  invalidate 
the  alleged  radical  discrepancy  among  men  in 
God's  sight,  by  proving  all  men  without  excep- 
tion to  be  in  themselves,  or  apart  from  God's 
operation  in  their  nature,  alike  prone  10  evil 
and  falsity.  Swedenborg  uniformly  denies  that 
personal  distinctions  among  men,  distinctions  of 
merely  natural  temperament  and  character,  have 
the  least  spiritual  validity.  He  denies  that  it  is 
possible  for  the  Divine  being  to  feel  the  slightest 
emotion  of  tenderness  or  complacency  towards 
3 


34  His  Staunch   Vindication 

one  person  as  naturally  constituted  (say,  the 
apostle  John,)  which  He  does  not  feel  towards 
every  othei  person,  however  differently  consti- 
tuted (say,  Judas  Iscariot).  He  utterly  denies 
the  pretension  of  any  creature  of  God  to  be 
spiritually  any  better,  /.  e.  any  better  in  himself, 
than  any  other  creature,  however  comparatively 
degraded  the  latter  may  be  in  all  moral  or  per- 
sonal regards.  And  doing  all  this  in  entire 
good  faith  —  scourging  out  of  rational  sight  for- 
ever the  conception  of  any  personally  meritori- 
ous or  personally  blameworthy  relation  of  man 
to  God  —  he  of  course  makes  it  inevitable  to 
conclude  against  the  absolute  wisdom  of  our 
past  social  legislation.  Indeed,  he  does  more 
than  this.  He  powerfully  disposes  his  intelli- 
gent reader  to  all  those  tendencies  of  modern 
thought,  which  go  to  urge  upon  society  the 
paramount  obligation  she  herself  is  under  of 
self-examination,  self-denial,  and  self-humilia- 
tion, in  order  that  vice  and  crime  may  be  no 
longer  punished  merely,  but  actually  and  per- 
manently  extinguished. 

In  one  word,  Swedenborg  refutes  the  possi- 
bility of  a  moral  righteousness  on  man's  part 
before  God :  /.  e.  a  righteousness  which  inheres 
in  the  man  himselfj  and  is  not  exclusively  de- 
rived to  him  from  the  equal  Divine  influx  and 
indwelling  in  all  the  forms  of  our  nature.  And 
hence,  of  course,  he  stamps  all  those  contrary 
judgments  of  character  upon  which  our  ordi- 
nary social  legislation  proceeds,  as  practically 
puerile  and  visionary. 


of  Human  Equality.  35 

But  he  makes  much  more  thorough  work  of 
it  than  this.  He  maintains  this  uncompromis- 
ing truth  of  every  man's  equahty  with  every 
other  man  before  God,  not  merely  in  respect 
to  men  on  earth,  or  as  they  stand  reciprocally 
distinguished  to  our  sight  by  differences  of  nat- 
ural temperament  and  moral  character;  but  also 
with  respect  to  men  in  heaven,  or  as  they  stand 
spiritually  differenced  one  from  another  to  the 
Divine  sight  by  their  various  relation  to  the 
infinite  Goodness  and  Truth.  "  In  heaven  no 
attention  is  paid  to  person,  nor  the  things  of 
person,  but  to  things  abstracted  from  person. 
Hence  they  have  no  recognition  of  a  man  from 
his  name  or  other  personal  attributes,  but  only 
from  his  distinctive  human  faculty  or  quality. 
The  thought  of  persons  limits  the  angelic  idea, 
or  gives  it  finiteness;  whereas  that  of  things 
does  not  limit  it,  but  gives  it  infinitude.  No 
person  named  in  the  Word  is  recognized  in 
heaven,  but  only  the  human  quality  or  sub- 
stance symbolized  by  that  person  ;  neither  any 
nation  or  people,  but  the  human  quality  of  such 
nation  and  people.  Thus  there  is  not  a  single 
fact  of  Scripture  concerning  person,  nation,  or 
people  which  is  not  completely  ignored  in  heav- 
en, where  the  angels  are  totally  unconcerned 
about  the  personality  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and 
Jacob,  and  see  no  difference  between  Jew  and 
Gentile,  but  difference  of  human  quality.  The 
angelic  idea,  refusing  in  this  manner  to  be  de- 
termined to  persons,  makes  the  speech  of  the  an- 
gels compared  with  ours  unlimited  and  univer- 


36  The  Jngels  devoid 

sal."^  "  There  is  no  will  of  good,  nor  any  un- 
derstanding of  truth,  which  attaches  to  the  angel 
himself,  but  only  to  the  Lord  in  him.  The 
most  celestial  angel  is  in  himself  altogether  false 
and  evil :  what  is  good  and  true  in  him,  being 
his  own  not  in  reality  but  only  apparently."^ 
"All  good  and  truth  is  from  the  Lord,  and  what 
is  the  Lord's  remains  His  in  those  who  receive 
it;  for  it  is  Divine,  and  cannot  become  the 
property  of  any  man.  What  is  Divine  may  be 
in  man,  but  not  as  his  own  or  in  his  selfhood, 
for  this  is  nothing  but  evil,  and  he  consequent- 
ly who  appropriates  what  is  Divine  to  him- 
self defiles  and  profanes  it.  The  Lord's  divin- 
ity (in  human  nature)  is  exquisitely  separated 
from  man's  selfhood,  elevated  above  and  never 
immersed  in  it."^  This  is  doubtless  why,  ac- 
cording to  another  statement  of  Swedenborg, 
"there  is  no  enforced  or  arbitrary  authority  ex- 
isting in  heaven,  since  no  angel  in  his  heart  ac- 
knowledges any  one  superior  to  himself  but  the 
Lord  alone."*  "  Heaven  is  heaven  from  the 
Divine  alone,  he  says.  So  much  accordingly 
as  the  angels  have  in  them  of  the  Lord's  Divine, 
so  much  they  constitute  heaven;  but  so  much  as 
they  have  of  themselves  in  them,  so  much  they 
do  not  constitute  heaven" — but  rather  of  course, 
its  opposite.^ 

According  to  these  statements  heaven  is  any- 
thing but  "a  mutual  admiration   society,"  and 

'  Arc.  Ccl.,  5225,  8343,  9007.     4  Apocalypse  Explained,  735. 

2  Ibid.,  633.  5  See  Arc.  Cel.,  9479. 

3  Apocalypse  Revealed,  758. 


of  Personal   IVorth.  37 

angels  the  most  celestial  will  prove  very  disa- 
greeable persons  to  many  who  now  aspire  to 
their  company.  But  let  us  go  on  to  cull  a 
few  more  of  these  generous  and  humane  para- 
graphs, with  the  hope  that  some  one  who  has 
been  deeply  imbued  with  our  prevalent  man- 
worship,  or  current  insanity  in  regard  to  the 
necessity  of  some  sort  of  personal  worth  in 
man,  before  he  can  be  entitled  to  expect  the 
Divine  favor,  and  been  led  by  it  to  strain  and 
puff  himself  out  of  all  childlike  innocence  and 
honesty,  in  order  to  catch  a  breath  of  God's 
applause,  may  be  arrested  by  them  and  recon- 
ducted into  the  ways  of  truth. 

"  Every  man,  regenerate  though  he  be,  is  such 
that  unless  the  Lord  withheld  him  from  evils 
and  falses,  he  would  cast  himself  precipitately 
into  hell ;  and  the  very  instant  he  is  not  with- 
held, he  plunges  headlong  into  it,  as  has  been 
made  known  to  me  by  actual  experiences."  ^ 
"  No  one  nowadays  doubts  that  evils  and  falses 
in  man  are  dispersed  and  abolished  while  he 
is  regenerating,  so  that  when  ,he  becomes  re- 
generated, nothing  of  evil  and  falsity  remains, 
but  he  is  clean  and  righteous  like  one  cleansed 
and  washed  with  water.  This  however  is 
utterly  false.  For  no  single  evil  or  falsity 
in  man  can  be  so  broken  up  as  to  be  abol- 
ished, but  on  the  contrary,  whatsoever  evil 
has  been  hereditarily  derived  to  a  person,  or 
been  actually  contracted  by  him,  remains ;  so 
that   every   man,    even    the   regenerate   man,    is 

1  Arc.  Cel.,  789. 


38  The  J?igeh  devoid 

nothing  but  evil  and  falsity,  as  is  shown  to  the 
life  after  death.  The  truth  of  this  statement  is 
demonstrable  from  the  fact,  that  nothing  of  good 
or  truth  exists  in  man  but  from  the  Lord,  and 
that  all  his  evil  and  falsity  are  from  selfhood ; 
so  that  every  man,  every  spirit,  yea  every  angel, 
if  left  in  the  least  to  themselves,  would  plunge 
spontaneously  into  hell.  This  is  why  in  scrip- 
ture the  heavens  are  said  to  be  impure.  The 
angels  acknowledge  this  truth,  and  whoso  re- 
fuses to  acknowledge  it  is  unfit  for  their  society. 
It  is  God's  mercy  alone  which  emancipates 
them  from  evil ;  yea,  which  withdraws  and  with- 
holds them  from  hell,  into  which  they  of  them- 
selves rush  headlong."  ^ 

Again  he  says  in  the  same  remarkable  repos- 
itory :  "  It  has  been  proved  to  me  by  lively 
experience,  that  every  man,  spirit,  and  angel, 
viewed  in  himself,  or  as  to  his  entire  proprium^ 
is  the  vilest  excrement,  and  that  if  he  were  left 
to  himself  he  would  breathe  only  hatreds,  re- 
venges, cruelties,  and  foulest  adulteries.  These 
things  are  his  proprium  and  his  will.  This  is 
evident  to  reflection  from  the  fact,  that  man  as 
he  is  born  is  viler  than  all  beasts ;  and  when  he 
grows  up  and  becomes  his  own  master,  unless 
external  bonds  which  are  of  the  law,  and  the 
bonds  he  imposes  upon  himself  in  order  to 
grow  greatest  and  richest,  prevented  him,  he 
would  rush  into  every  iniquity,  nor  ever  rest 
until  he  had  subjugated  everybody  else  to  him- 
self,  and  possessed   himself   of  their   substance, 

I  Arc.  Ccl.,  868. 


of  'Personal  JVorth.  39 

showing  no  favor  to  any  but  those  who  should 
become  his  abject  slaves.  Such  is  the  nature  ot 
every  man,  however  ignorant  he  be  of  the  fact 
in  consequence  of  his  want  of  power  to  do 
what  he  would  Hke ;  but  give  him  the  power, 
and  release  him  from  the  obligations  of  pru- 
dence, and  his  inclination  would  fall  no  whit 
behind  his  opportunity.  The  beasts  are  not  so 
bad  as  this,  for  they  are  born  into  a  certain  order 
of  nature.  Those  that  are  fierce  and  rapacious 
do  indeed  inflict  injury  upon  others,  but  only 
from  self-preservation ;  and  when  they  devour 
others,  it  is  to  appease  hunger,  for  when  this  is 
done  they  cease  from  violence."  ^ 

Certainly  these  are  anything  but  slipshod 
statements.  They  involve  on  their  very  face 
indeed  a  philosophy  which  no  merely  meta- 
physic  wit  has  yet  sounded ;  which,  on  the 
contrary,  would  seem  to  leave  Schelling  and 
Sir  William  Hamilton  forever  to  bump  their 
learned  heads,  without  striking  out  a  solitary 
spark  available  to  human  hope  or  progress. 

What,  obviously,  is  the  fundamental  postu- 
late of  this  philosophy  ? 

It  is  that  man  is  in  literal  strictness  a  crea- 
ture of  God,  dependent  every  moment  upon  the 
Divine  communication  for  all  that  he  has  and 
is  and  hopes  to  become.  He  is  absolutely  and 
at  every  moment  void  of  life  in  himself,  so  that 
if  the  fulness  of  the  creative  bounty  were  sus- 
pended towards  him  for  a  moment,  or  if  it  were 
for  an  instant  overclouded,  he  would  at  once 
cease  to  be. 

1  Arc.  Cel.,  987. 


40  Swedcnborg's   Statements   imply 

Such  is  the  fundamental  postuhite  ot  this  phi- 
losophy :  but  this  would  go  but  a  little  way 
to  satisfy  the  mind,  if  this  were  all.  For  the 
reader  would  in  that  case  reasonably  ask : 
"  Whence  comes  it,  if  this  be  the  truth  of  things, 
that  the  appearance  is  so  different?  If  man  be 
this  abject  creature  of  God,  how  has  he  self- 
hood, or  a  feeling  of  life  in  himself?  How  is 
it  that  he  feels  so  self-sufficient,  for  example,  as 
to  be  able  to  reason  about  the  possibility  of  his 
never  having  been  created,  and  to  doubt  the 
Divine  existence?  See  the  statue  which  I 
create.  It  is  abjectly  servile  to  my  will,  and 
has  no  capacity  whatever  to  gainsay  it.  It  ex- 
hibits no  faintest  show  of  life  or  consciousness. 
And  is  it  conceivable  that  the  creature  of  the 
Divine  power  should  not  be  infinitely  more 
dependent  upon  God,  than  any  product  of  my 
power  can  be  upon  me  ?  How  then  shall  we 
explain  man's  moral  experience  on  the  hy- 
pothesis of  his  unlimited  creatureship  ?  How 
shall  we  account  for  his  exuberant  selfhood, 
freedom,  conscious  life,  if  he  be  the  absolute 
creation  you  make  him  ?" 

It  is  clearly  impossible  to  satisfy  these  reason- 
able demands,  if  we  continue  to  conceive  of 
creation  as  a  physical  act  of  God  in  time  and 
space;  if  we  do  not  at  once  begin  to  view  it  as 
a  purely  rational  act,  involving  the  most  exqui- 
site adjustment  of  means  to  ends ;  or  what  is  the 
same  thing  in  other  words,  if  we  do  not  con- 
ceive of  the  natural  creation  as  taking  place 
altogether  in  the  interests  of  a  totally  distinct 


a  Profound  'Philosophy,  41 

and  superior  style  of  life.  Morality  is  a  purely 
rational  fact.  It  supposes  its  subject  to  be  a 
ratio,  or  mean,  between  two  extremes :  God  and 
nature,  infinite  and  finite,  spirit  and  flesh.  To 
attempt  to  account  for  moral  consciousness  then 
on  physical  principles  purely,  would  be  like  at- 
tempting to  account  for  a  child  by  assigning  it  a 
mother  and  denying  it  a  father.  It  is  evident 
that  we  can  explain  no  phenomenon  of  conscious- 
ness, if  we  allow  its  physical  element  to  swamp 
or  supersede  its  spiritual  one.  It  is  impossible 
in  fact  to  justify  a  single  breath  of  morality, 
unless  you  subordinate  what  is  natural  in  the 
creature  to  what  is  spiritual,  unless  you  make 
what  gives  it  finiteness  or  identity  serve  what 
gives  it  infinitude  or  individuality.  In  short, 
our  natural  creation  is  not  final,  does  not  take 
place  on  its  own  behalf,  but  only  in  order  to 
something  else,  which  is  our  spiritual  conjunc- 
tion or  fellowship  with  God.  As  the  Bible 
phrases  it,  we  are  created  in  order  to  be  made 
or  formed.  "  And  God  blessed  the  seventh 
day  and  sanctified  it,  because  that  in  it  he  had 
rested  from  all  his  work  which  he  had  created 
to  make."^  And  inasmuch  as  all  spiritual  con- 
junction or  fellowship  implies  mutual  action 
and  reaction — reciprocal  give  and  take  —  be- 
tween the  parties  to  it,  it  is  evident  that  man 
can  become  spiritually  conjoined  with  God  only 
in  freedom,  only  so  far  forth  as  he  is  consciously 
self-prompted  thereto,  or  feels  an  intelligent  sym- 
pathy with  the  Divine  name. 

1  Gen.  ii.  -j. 


42  lis  Fundamental  Notion 

Freedom  or  selfhood,  then,  is  implied  in  God's 
creature,  just  as  the  foundation  of  a  house  is  im- 
plied in  its  superstructure  ;  because  the  creature, 
being  destined  for  spiritual  conjunction  with 
God,  for  the  fellowship  of  his  maker's  perfec- 
tion, must  of  course  first  he  to  his  own  con- 
sciousness, or  exist  in  himself,  before  he  can  be- 
come conjoined  with  God.  I  emphasize  the 
word  "implied"  here,  because  I  want  the  reader 
distinctly  to  understand  the  point  involved, 
which  is:  that  that  most  distinctive  and  charac- 
teristic force  in  our  nature  which  we  call  free- 
dom, rationality,  selfhood,  the  moral  force  in 
short,  and  upon  which  we  are  all  so  disposed  to 
run  riot,  is  not  a  finality;  is  by  no  means  an 
absolute  gift;  but  is  on  the  contrary  a  most  strict 
and  perpetual  Divine  communication  or  permis- 
sion, in  the  interest  exclusively  of  a  very  supe- 
rior spiritual  and  eternal  end.  This  is  the 
infirmity  of  all  our  ordinary  traditional  notions 
on  the  subject  of  creation,  that  man's  selfhood 
or  moral  force,  his  freedom  or  rationality,  is 
tacitly  excepted  from  the  Divine  operation,  and 
his  mere  passive  or  physical  experience  account- 
ed for.  But  clearly  if  I  am  an  unlimited  crea- 
ture of  God,  my  most  characteristic  experience 
is  precisely  what  that  fact  ought  best  to  explain. 
If  I  am  an  indubitable  creation  of  God's  power, 
then  whatsoever  goes  inmostly  to  constitute  me 
to  my  own  perception,  must  especially  fall 
within  that  framework,  and  not  outside  of  it ; 
must  confess  itself  strictly  incidental  to  my 
creation,  instead  of  accidental  as  we  are  inclined 


the  Dependence  of  Morality.  43 

to  regard  it.  I  may  feel  myself  to  be  my  own 
master  just  as  much  as  I  please,  and  claim  with 
pride  the  exclusive  responsibility  of  my  own 
actions.  I  may  cherish  such  a  feeling  indeed  of 
my  own  independence  of  any  higher  power  than 
that  I  call  Nature,  as  to  entertain  grave  doubts 
of  the  Divine  existence :  but  these  facts  should 
only  illustrate  not  invalidate  my  alleged  crea- 
tureship.  Every  legitimate  hypothesis  of  my 
creatureship  is  bound  to  cover  and  account  for 
all  these  apparently  contradictory  phenomena, 
under  penalty  of  invalidating  itself  Let  me 
rob  my  neighbor  of  his  property  to  any  extent, 
defame  his  character,  betray  his  domestic  peace, 
deprive  him  of  life;  in  short,  let  me  obscure  the 
Divine  image  in  my  soul  under  any  amount  of 
turpitude:  the  reader  has  not  the  smallest  right 
to  go  on  affirming  m.y  creatureship,  without  at 
the  least  trying  to  explain  these  very  ugly  things 
by  it.  He  may  be  scientifically  incapable  of 
doing  so,  but  it  is  a  manifest  philosophic  obli- 
gation upon  him  to  make  the  attempt.  For  if 
God  be  truly  my  creator,  it  is  my  very  self  that 
he  gives  being  to,  my  most  distinctive  character- 
istic and  inseparable  self :  and  every  attempt 
consequently  to  postulate  my  creation,  and  at 
the  same  time  exclude  my  moral  history  from 
it,  confesses  itself  simply  preposterous. 

Let  my  meaning  be  clearly  understood.  The 
moral  experience  of  man  has  always  been  and 
still  is  the  stumbling-block  of  Philosophy,  be- 
cause Philosophy  has  not  known  how  to  bring 
it  within  creation,  inasmuch  as  it  regards  crea- 


44  J^^  Fundamental  Notion 

tion  as  a  purely  physical  exploit  of  God's 
power,  an  event  in  time  and  space;  and  hence 
leaves  the  human  mind  or  the  moral  realm  of 
experience  completely  unhoused  by  it.  Now  I 
say  that  Philosophy  is  most  inconsistent  in  this, 
because  if  I  am  a  creature  of  God,  if  He  gives 
me  literally  all  the  being  I  possess,  Philosophy 
has  no  right  to  restrict  His  creative  operation  to 
the  limits  of  my  merely  physical  or  passive  per- 
sonality: it  is  bound  to  prove  it  equally  energetic 
and  absolute  within  the  range  of  my  moral  or 
active  subjectivity  as  well.  It  has  no  right  to 
say  that  God  possesses  me  ab  extra  exclusively: 
it  is  bound,  if  all  my  being  derives  from  Him,  to 
show  that  He  possesses  me  also  ab  intra.  I  know 
very  well  how  contrary  this  is  to  established 
prejudice.  The  grand  old  religions  of  the  world 
are  running  very  low  nowadays ;  have  given 
place  in  fact  to  the  emptiest  scientific  babble. 
The  moral  sphere  of  life  consequently,  the  sphere 
of  our  felt  freedom  or  selfhood,  is  everywhere 
getting  to  be  regarded  by  insincere  and  specu- 
lative religionists  as  absolute  and  rightfully  ex- 
empt from  the  Divine  invasion.  Morality,  as 
interpreted  by  our  cleverest  and  most  admired 
theological  empirics,  means  a  capacity  in  its 
subject  of  absolute  self-determination ;  of  unde- 
rived  power ;  means  the  state  of  a  man  who  not 
only  in  appearance  but  in  reality  is  a  law  unto 
himself  No  doubt  the  interests  of  our  responsi- 
bility to  God  and  the  neighbor,  when  viewed  in 
the  letter  or  on  the  surface,  do  seem  to  justify 
this  insane  pretension,  inasmuch  as  they  require 


the  Dependence  of  Morality.  45 

that  our  conduct  should  be  visibly  self-moved, 
or  date  from  ourselves  exclusively,  to  the  denial 
of  all  outward  constraint.  But  then  the  surface 
aspect  of  things  is  precisely  what  the  philoso- 
pher disregards,  being  above  all  things  careful 
to  seize  their  substantial  or  spiritual  import, 
which  alone  is  conformable  to  absolute  truth. 
At  all  events  it  is  just  this  surface  aspect  of  the 
case  which  Swedenborg  proves  to  be  eminently 
fallacious,  in  showing  us  that  the  apparent  self- 
hood or  freedom  we  have  from  nature,  is  nothing 
but  an  appearance,  vouchsafed  to  us  in  the  in- 
terest of  a  higher  or  spiritual  evolution,  and 
contingent  upon  a  certain  strict  equilibrium 
which  the  Divine  Providence  maintains  in  our 
nature  between  the  opposing  poles  of  good  and 
evil. 

Let  me  briefly  illustrate  the  practical  differ- 
ence on  this  point  between  Swedenborg  and  the 
popular  theologians,  by  a  familiar  example. 

I  tell  a  lie,  perhaps  to  screen  myself  from 
some  menaced  blame  or  injury,  perhaps  to  ad- 
vance myself  at  another's  expense.  Whatever 
be  the  motive  of  my  action,  I  have  an  entire 
sense  of  freedom  from  constraint  in  doing  it. 
So  far  as  any  feeling  of  coercion  operates 
upon  me  to  do  it,  I  feel  that  I  might  refrain 
from  doing  it  as  well  as  not.  In  short,  the  de- 
termination of  my  action  lies  to  my  own  con- 
sciousness wholly  in  myself  I  actually  debate 
whether  to  do  it  or  not,  and  either  deliberately 
conclude  to  do  it,  or  else  purposely  leave  my 
mind  so  un-made-up  about  it,  as  to  render  that 


4-6  Our  Moral  Force 

result  very  probable  whenever  the  occasion  to 
decide  shall  arise. 

Now  the  popular  theologian  looking  at  this 
experience  would  say,  that  my  natural  feeling 
of  freedom  in  the  premises,  was  the  exact  meas- 
ure of  the  spiritual  truth;  that  I  felt  free,  in  other 
words,  to  tell  the  he,  because  I  absolutely  was  free. 
He  sees  that  so  far  as  appearances  go  I  am  free; 
that  so  far  as  man's  judgment  or  my  own  con- 
sciousness is  concerned,  I  acted  under  no  con- 
straint ;  and  having  no  idea  that  natural  appear- 
ances are  only  inversely  and  not  directly  as  their 
spiritual  realities,  he  concludes  that  my  moral 
power,  the  power  which  I  consciously  have 
either  to  tell  the  lie  or  not  to  tell  it,  is  all  my 
own,  my  own  absolutely,  and  independently  of 
my  relations  to  other  beings. 

Swedenborg  explodes  this  sensuous  reasoning 
in  toto.  He  denies  that  my  natural  feeling  of 
freedom  in  the  premises  is  any  measure  of  the 
spiritual  reality.  He  affirms,  in  short,  that  I 
feel  free  to  do  evil,  and  therefore  charge  myself 
with  it,  not  by  virtue  of  anything  in  myself,  for 
in  myself  I  am  and  can  be  nothing  but  a  recip- 
ient; but  altogether  by  virtue  of  an  operation 
of  God  in  the  spiritual  world,  or  the  unseen 
depths  of  the  human  mind,  so  sharply  separating 
good  from  evil,  heaven  from  hell,  and  then  so 
exquisitely  balancing  the  one  by  the  other,  as  to 
prevent  any  preponderant  influx  of  either  into 
nature,  and  enable  Him  to  endow  me  conse- 
quently with  a  sense  of  freedom,  a  feeling  of 
selfhood,  so  genial  and  exquisite  that  I  cannot 


perpetually  communicated.  47 

help  appropriating  it,  or  feeling  it  to  be  indeed 
bone  of  my  bone  and  flesh  of  my  flesh,  and 
foregoing  everything  for  it.  God  gives  me  this 
selfhood  or  conscious  freedom,  this  ability  to 
discern  for  myself  between  good  and  evil,  not 
absolutely  or  for  its  own  sake,  but  in  the  inter- 
est of  my  immortal  spiritual  conjunction  with 
Him.  I  can  only  become  spiritually  conjoined 
with  him,  as  we  have  already  seen,  in  freedom, 
or  in  so  far  as  I  am*  consciously  self-prompted 
thereto;  and  He  accordingly  endows  me  with 
my  natural  selfhood  or  freedom,  only  that  it 
may  serve  as  the  basis  of  this  higher  boon;  or 
in  order  that  I,  knowing  good  and  evil,  may  as 
of  myself  cleave  to  the  one  and  forsake  the  other, 
and  so  come  spiritually  into  such  a  relation  of 
correspondence  with  His  perfection,  as  that  I 
shall  eventually  be  quickened  into  the  liveliest 
personal  sympathy  with,  and  most  solicitous  per- 
sonal aspiration  towards,  His  fragrant  and  spot- 
less name. 

The  difference,  then,  between  Swedenborg 
and  the  popular  religionists  is,  that  the  latter 
make  the  moral  consciousness  in  man  a  finality, 
or  its  own  end ;  so  leaving  the  good  and  evil 
that  are  in  human  nature,  or  heaven  and  hell, 
totally  unamenable  to  any  higher  or  subsequent 
operation  of  the  Divine  power.  According  to 
Swedenborg,  on  the  other  hand,  our  moral  his- 
tory is  but  a  merciful  Divine  means  to  an  infi- 
nitely superior  Divine  end  in  humanity,  which 
is  our  spiritual  conjunction,  as  a  race,  with  God. 
Our  moral  experience    is   merely  a   provisional 


48  Otir  Moral  Force 

basis  or  foundation  in  the  individual  bosom,  for 
a  stupendous  spiritual  edifice  which  the  Divine 
wisdom  is  assiduously  rearing  in  human  nature 
itself  And  if  we  regard  it  accordingly  not  as 
being  purely  ministerial  to  this  diviner  style  of 
manhood,  but  as  magisterial  in  fact,  and  having 
a  right  to  our  unlimited  allegiance,  we  shall  be 
like  a  man  who  is  so  intent  upon  sinking  the 
foundations  of  his  house  to  the  greatest  possible 
depth,  that  he  comes  at  last  upon  the  elemental 
fires,  or  finds  his  ostentatious  labor  swallowed 
up  of  quicksands. 

In  short,  our  ordinary  cosmology  accounts 
or  professes  to  account  for  Nature,  which  is  the 
bare  skeleton  of  existence;  but  it  leaves  History 
which  is  the  lifeblood  and  rounded  flesh  that 
clothe  that  skeleton  with  beauty,  wholly  lawless 
and  accidental.  Swedenborg,  on  the  contrary, 
illustrates  Nature  by  History,  or  makes  the  body 
of  things  rigidly  authenticate  their  soul.  This 
treatment  converts  creation  from  a  mere  ostenta- 
tious exhibition  of  unprincipled  power,  without 
rational  beginning  as  without  rational  result,  into 
an  infinitely  tender  and  orderly  procedure  of  the 
eternal  Love  and  Wisdom,  in  all  the  endlessly 
various  but  ineffably  harmonious  forms  of  hu- 
man nature. 

This  is  but  a  glimpse  of  Swedenborg's  labor. 
Yet  even  this  glimpse  entitles  us  to  expect  of 
him  a  clear  philosophic  explication  of  the  great 
mystery  of  creation:  /.  e.  a  doctrine  upon  that 
subject  which  shall  appease  every  aspiration  of 
the  heart  towards  God,  and  every  demand  of  the 


perpetually  communicated,  49 

intellect  thence  engendered.  The  invincible 
witness  of  the  heart  towards  God  is,  that  he  is 
infinite  in  love :  /.  e.  that  His  love  for  his  crea- 
tures is  wholly  untainted  by  any  regard  for  Him- 
self. It  is  the  equally  invincible  witness  of  our 
intelligence  that  He  is  infinite  in  wisdom  :  /.  e. 
that  his  ability  to  carry  out  his  designs  of  love 
falls  no  whit  behind  his  disposition.  A  doctrine 
of  creation,  therefore,  which  should  practically 
affront  either  of  these  great  witnesses,  by  affirm- 
ing a  permanent  imperfection  in  the  creative 
work,  or  actual  outcome  of  this  infinite  Love 
and  Wisdom,  Would  stamp  itself  unworthy  of 
men's  lasting  respect. 


CHAPTER   II. 

The  profoundest  of  our  sensuous  judgments, 
and  the  basis  of  the  religious  instinct  in  us,  is, 
that  our  natural  force  is  final :  that  far  from  be- 
ing strictly  incidental  to  a  grander  subsequent 
evolution  of  the  Divine  power  in  us,  it  is,  on  the 
contrary,  its  own  end;  thus  that  the  pleasure  and 
the  pain,  the  health  and  the  disease,  the  strength 
and  the  weakness,  the  growth  and  the  decay, 
upon  whose  equilibrium  our  natural  conscious- 
ness is  contingent,  are  in  themselves  absolute 
goods  and  evils:  to  be  received,  the  former  with 
thankfulness,  as  a  mark  of  the  Divine  favor;  the 
latter  with  sorrow,  as  a  mark  of  the  Divine  dis- 
pleasure. 

Christianity  has  done  very  much  to  soften  the 
fierceness  of  this  Pagan  inheritance  in  our  bo- 
soms, if  not  altogether  to  extinguish  it.  But 
the  same  prejudice  in  application  to  our  moral 
instincts,  still  exists  there  unsuspected,  awaiting 
the  slow  correction  of  science.  Almost  every 
one  in  Christendom,  especially  in  literal  or  Eu- 
ropean Christendom,  conceives  that  our  moral 
judgments,  our  judgments  of  character,  are  a 
direct  efflux  of  the  Divine  judgment :  thus  that 
where  we  see  a  difference  of  good  and  evil 
among  men,  God  sees  the  same  difference,  only 


Moral  L/fe  in  order  to  Spiritual.  51 

in  aggravated  form;  that  where  we  approve 
the  good  man  and  condemn  the  evil  one,  He 
feels  literally  the  same  emotions  in  kind  that 
we  feel,  only  more  intense  in  degree.  I  scarcely 
know  an  orthodox  ecclesiastic  who  is  not  so 
content  with  feeding  upon  this  windy  fruit  of 
"the  tree  of  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,"  as 
virtually  to  agree  with  the  old  serpent  in  consid- 
ering that  diet  as  the  soul's  best  nutriment,  infal- 
libly assimilating  our  intelligence  to  God's,  in 
place  of  forever  differencing  it  from  His. 

Swedenborg  effectually  exposes  this  insanity, 
by  proving  that  just  as  our  physical  experience 
has  had  no  other  end  than  to  base  or  matriculate 
our  moral  manhood,  so  our  moral  experience  in 
its  turn  has  had  no  other  end  than  to  serve  as  a 
matrix  or  mould  to  our  true  spiritual  manhood. 
He  reduces  the  part  which  morality  plays  in  the 
Divine  administration  to  a  strictly  educative  one; 
its  whole  office  being  to  loosen  nature's  remorse- 
less grasp  upon  us,  and  so  prepare  us  spiritually 
for  the  unimpeded  Divine  inhabitation.  Noth- 
ing consequently  can  be  more  hurtful  to  the 
intellect  than  to  confound  the  moral  and  spirit- 
ual consciousness  in  man ;  or  make  that  purely 
phenomenal  freedom  which  distinguishes  us  nat- 
urally from  the  brute,  take  the  place  of  that  most 
real  freedom  which  allies  us  spiritually  with  God. 
One  is  simply  the  badge  of  our  natural  dignity, 
of  what  forever  separates  us  from  the  animal; 
the  other  is  the  mark  of  our  individual  spiritual 
culture.  One  merely  stamps  us  as  God's  true 
creature  among  all   lower  creatures;    the  other 


52  Moral  Life  in  order  to  Spiritual. 

pronounces  us  His  children,  redeemed  from  dis- 
tant creatureship  into  intimate  sonship,  by  the 
frankest  freest  and  most  cordial  participation  of 
His  spirit. 

The  particular  service  then  which  Sweden- 
borg  renders  to  Philosophy,  consists  in  the  com- 
plete elucidation  he  affords  the  moral  instinct,  as 
basing  and  alone  basing  the  evolution  of  our 
spiritual  destiny.  Morality  admits  of  no  abso- 
lute justification.  How  can  any  mind  of  true 
reverence  tolerate  the  conception  of  a  creature 
of  God,  who  is  anything  in-himself  ?  For  to 
be  anything  in  himself,  he  must  claim  a  power 
underived  from  God,  and  the  pretension  to  such 
a  power  is  fatal  to  creatureship.  Accordingly, 
whenever  a  man  attempts  to  vindicate  morality 
unconditionally,  he  finds  himself  logically  com- 
pelled to  bring  up  in  Atheism  or  Pantheism  :  at 
all  events  to  deny  creation  in  any  intelligible 
sense  of  that  word.^  What  justifies  moral  ex- 
istence and  alone  justifies  it,  is  the  use  it  sub- 
serves to  an  infinitely  superior  style  of  manhood: 
precisely  as  what  justifies  us  in  digging  a  subter- 
ranean foundation  for  our  houses  is,  the  use  such 
foundation  is  calculated  to  promote  to  an  edifice 
made  up  of  light  and  air. 

Thus  according  to  Swedenborg  our  moral 
history  with  all  its  tremendous  issues  of  heaven 
and  hell,  falls  within  creation  not  outside  of  it : 

1  Dr.  Bushnell  hazards  a  \evf  rality  being  that  it  involves  a  par- 
rash  and  even  desperate  solution  ticipation  of  the  Divine  essence  ! 
of  the  difficulty,  by  making  God  See  "  Nature  and  the  Supernat- 
to  create  a  number  of  little  gods  ura\,''  passim. 
instead  of  men  :  his  idea  of  mo- 


Kant  and  Swedenborg.  ^'^ 

that  is  to  say,  does  not  express  the  relation  of 
the  creature  to  the  creator,  but  of  the  creature 
to  himself  Unlike  Kant  Swedenborg  restricts 
nature  to  a  purely  constitutive  use,  and  denies 
her  the  least  creative  efficacy.  Her  total  func- 
tion is  to  confer  subjectivity  not  objectivity.  She 
gives  conscious  existence  or  identity  to  her  sub- 
jects, but  has  no  power  to  give  them  unconscious 
being  or  individuality.  Kant  himself  indeed 
allows  that  our  knowledge  of  nature  reaches  only 
to  what  is  constitutive  and  phenomenal  of  other 
existence  in  her;  but  then  he  maintains  that  she 
possesses  a  latent  noumenal  or  creative  force  in 
herself  as  well,  insisting  that  the  thing  which  ap- 
pears is  never  the  veritable  thing-in-itself,  never 
the  thing  which  really  is.  Swedenborg  on  the 
other  hand  affirms  that  the  thing  which  appears 
is  the  veritable  thing-in-itself;  that  phenomenon 
and  noumenon  are  identical  in  other  words;  since 
the  only  selfhood  or  existence  which  is  possible 
and  proper  to  created  things,  must  in  the  nature 
of  the  case  be  phenomenal  not  absolute. 

Why  "in  the  nature  of  the  case'"?  The  an- 
swer is  very  obvious. 

We  saw  a  while  ago  that  the  Divine  end  in 
creation  is  the  eternal  spiritual  conjunction  of 
the  creature  with  Himself:  this  end  being  neces- 
sitated by  the  very  infinitude  of  the  Divine  Love, 
which  is  so  unalloyed  by  self-love  as  to  be  spon- 
taneously communicative  of  itself  to  others:  /.  e. 
creative.  But  what  is  other  than  God,  what 
is  alien  to  God,  has  and  plainly  can  have  no  ab- 
solute existence,  no  existence  in-itself;  but  only 


54  Swedenborg's   Do^rine  of 

a  phenomenal  or  apparent  existence  permitted 
in  the  interests  of  God's  creative  design.  Thus 
much  existence  indeed — existence  of  this  purely 
phenomenal  and  permitted  quality  —  is  indispen- 
sable to  it,  because  otherwise  the  creature  could 
have  no  existence,  no  imaginable  ground  of  pro- 
jection from  God,  nor  consequently  any  claim  to 
have  been  created  by  Him.  The  creature's  nat- 
ural identity  in  short  is  the  first  interest,  the  fun- 
damental postulate,  of  his  spiritual  individuality. 
For  clearly  God  does  not  create  what  is  Himself, 
but  only  what  is  not  Himself;  what  is  alien  to 
Himself;  what  indeed  is  intensely  opposite  and 
repugnant  to  Himself  And  alienation  from  God, 
opposition  to  God,  is  never  absolutely  but  only 
and  at  best  phenomenally  possible ;  being  con- 
tingent upon  the  otherwise  unimaginable  depths 
of  the  creative  mercy. 

Thus  God's  creature  is  bound  first  of  all  to  exist 
phenomenally  or  to  his  own  consciousness,  before 
he  can  claim  to  exist  absolutely;  /.  e.  to  God's 
own  perception  as  well.  But  clearly  this  phe- 
nomenal existence  is  the  only  existence  the  crea- 
ture can  claim  to  have  in-himself:  whatever 
other  more  real  existence  he  has,  must  be  not  in 
himself  but  exclusively  in  God.  This,  briefly,  is 
what  I  meant  by  saying  that  "  in  the  nature  of 
things  "  the  only  existence  or  selfhood  possible 
to  the  creature  is  phenomenal  not  noumenal. 

In  view  of  these  considerations  the  reader 
will  be  able  to  anticipate  the  commanding  light 
which  they  shed  upon  the  nature  of  evil.  For 
if  the  fundamental  law  of  creation  be  what  we 


the  Origin  of  Evil.  55 

have  alleged,  namely :  that  the  creature  have 
phenomenal  or  conscious  selfhood,  in  order  to 
base  his  subsequent  spiritual  conjunction  with 
God :  then  it  follows  that  his  highest  welfare 
must  consist  in  his  not  being  duped  by  this  mere 
appearance,  in  his  taking  it  at  its  actual  worth 
as  an  appearance;  and  his  deepest  misery  consist 
in  his  mistaking  it  for  an  absolute  reality.  His 
selfhood  or  conscious  life  in  himself  is  indeed 
but  the  outward  form  of  his  inmost  spiritual 
dependence  upon  God ;  so  that  if  he  allows  it 
to  degenerate  into  a  sentiment  of  independence 
towards  God,  /.  e.  to  become  absolute,  he  falls 
incontinently  into  evil. 

Now  this  result  is  inevitable  to  the  creature's 
inexperience :  but  Christianity  teaches  us  that 
so  far  from  regretting  it,  we  should  rejoice  in  it 
as  furnishing  the  only  fitting  opportunity  for  the 
true  manifestation  of  the  Divine  power  towards 
us,  as  becoming  able  really  to  create  us  naturally, 
only  by  first  redeeming  us  spiritually.  Spiritual 
redemption,  not  physical  creation,  is  the  inmost 
splendor  of  the  Divine  name ;  and  he  who  has 
not  learned  thus  much  of  Christianity,  has  a  good 
deal  yet  to  learn.     Let  me  explain. 

What  I  say  is :  that  inasmuch  as  the  senti- 
ment of  self  hood  or  freedom  is  instinctive  to 
the  human  bosom,  being  a  preliminary  exigency 
of  our  spiritual  formation  in  the  Divine  image, 
it  remains  innocent  only  so  long  as  it  is  an  in- 
stinct, and  does  not  assume  to  dominate  the  con- 
sciousness :  that  is,  only  so  long  as  the  race  is 
in  the  infancy  of  its  development.     While  the 


56  Swedenh org's  Do^rine  of 

race  is  still  in  infantile  conditions,  and  has  not 
come  to  scientific  consciousness,  the  conscious- 
ness of  its  destined  power  over  nature,  the  senti- 
ment of  selfhood  or  freedom  in  its  bosom  is 
but  another  name  for  the  sentiment  of  its  de- 
pendence upon  God :  and  a  tender  religious 
awe  consequently  hallows  the  Divine  name  to 
its  bosom,  just  as  a  feeling  of  respect  and  affec- 
tion hallows  a  parent's  name  to  a  child.  Un- 
doubtedly this  awe  would  soon  degenerate  into 
servile  superstition  (witness  the  heathen  nations), 
unless  the  mind  of  the  race  grew  by  experience, 
by  the  gradual  conquest  of  nature ;  unless,  in 
other  words,  it  became  scientifically  enlarged  : 
just  as  the  child's  habitual  reverence  for  the 
parent  would  degenerate  into  chronic  imbecility, 
if  the  child  should  not  eventually  grow  to  the 
parent's  intellectual  stature.  The  growth  of 
the  mind,  accordingly,  out  of  its  purely  instinct- 
ual beginnings  into  pronounced  scientific  form 
and  order,  is  inevitable,  because  necessary  to  its 
eventual  philosophic  sanity,  or  complete  fellow- 
ship with  God. 

But  now  I  say  only  what  is  known  to  the 
experience  of  every  reader,  when  I  say  that  the 
child  as  he  grows  to  man's  estate  and  becomes 
qualified  himself  to  wield  the  paternal  inherit- 
ance, puts  off  to  his  own  observation  the 
innocence  and  docility  which  marked  his  in- 
fancy, the  ready  unquestioning  obedience  he 
exhibited  to  the  paternal  word,  the  tender  con- 
fiding reverence  he  felt  for  the  paternal  mind 
and  character.     He  now  wishes  to  be  wise,  not 


the  Origin  of  Evil.  57 

from  his  father  but  from  himself;  and  good,  no 
longer  from  outward  tuition  or  constraint,  but 
from  his  own  prompting,  from  a  sense  of  what 
is  due  exclusively  to  his  own  personal  dignity. 
It  is  the  rise  of  a  practically  healthful  scepticism 
or  Protestantism  in  the  soul;  a  needful  insurrec- 
tion against  all  purely  external  or  arbitrary  au- 
thority. So  precisely  does  it  fare  with  the 
analogous  history  of  the  race,  or  the  associated 
consciousness  of  man.  Its  infantile  intelligence 
also  puts  on  erelong  the  characters  of  adoles- 
cence and  manhood.  As  its  power  over  nature 
widens,  as  its  passional  and  intellectual  wants 
stimulate  and  develop  its  active  powers,  it  looks 
up  less  reverently  to  heaven,  and  learns  to  con- 
fide more  fully  upon  itself,  upon  what  it  feels  and 
hence  supposes  to  be  its  own  absolute  resources; 
the  tender  religious  awe  of  its  earlier  days  melt- 
ing thus  infallibly  into  the  scientific  pride  and 
power  of  its  majority. 

This  advancing  scientific  consciousness  of  the 
race  has  always  been  regarded  as  a  fallen  state 
of  the  mind ;  but  it  is  not  so  absolutely ;  it  is 
so  only  relatively  to  the  mental  condition  from 
which  it  departs.  Thus  measured  it  is  no  doubt 
a  fall.  If  religion  is  bound  to  undergo  the  slow 
sepulture  of  science,  with  no  hope  of  any  subse- 
quent resurrection  in  living  or  glorified  form:  if, 
in  other  words,  science  constitute  the  perfected 
form  of  the  mind,  the  full  measure  of  its  expan- 
sibility :  I,  for  one  at  least,  have  no  hesitation  in 
saying  that  it  would  have  been  better  for  the 
race  to  have  remained  to  this  day  in  its  cradle, 


58  Swedenborg's   Do^rine   of 

hearkening  to  the  inspiration  of  naiad  and  dryad, 
of  sea-nymph  and  of  faun,  than  to  have  come 
out  of  it  only  to  find  its  endless  spiritual  capac- 
ities, its  capacities  of  spontaneous  action,  hope- 
lessly stranded  upon  these  barren  rocks  of  science, 
ruthlessly  imprisoned  in  her  lifeless  laws  or  gen- 
eralizations. For  if  the  difference  between  the 
purely  religious  or  instinctual  consciousness  of 
the  race  and  its  growing  scientific  consciousness, 
be,  as  we  have  seen,  the  difference  between 
the  child  and  the  youth,  between  diffidence  and 
self-confidence;  then  it  is  extremely  easy  still 
further  to  see,  that  this  subtle  spiritual  change 
which  creeps  over  the  mind  of  the  race  simply 
by  virtue  of  its  increasing  acquaintance  with 
itself,  with  its  own  God-given  powers,  can  only 
deepen  as  time  rolls  on,  until  the  mind  becomes 
confirmed  at  last  in  all  manner  of  pride  and  vul- 
gar self-assertion:  until  its  infantile  and  innocent 
sentiment  of  freedom,  becomes  hardened  into 
one  of  complete  unhesitating  and  blatant  inde- 
pendence. 

But  there  is  no  need  to  estimate  the  change 
exclusively  in  this  aspect,  that  is,  in  its  relation 
to  the  mental  condition  out  of  which  it  springs. 
We  must  view  it  in  relation  to  the  mental  con- 
dition in  which  it  issues  or  brings  up ;  and  here 
we  shall  see  that  what  men  have  called  a  fall,  is 
really  a  rise.  For  the  object  of  the  Divine 
Providence  having  been  to  secure  man's  cordial 
fellowship  with  Himself,  who  is  infinite  Love, 
love  without  any  limitation  of  self-love,  this  ob- 
ject could  only  be  attained  empirically;  that  is. 


the  Origin  of  Evil.  59 

by  the  creature  undergoing  in  his  own  proper 
experience  such  a  sickening  conviction  of  the 
evils  wrapped  up  in  an  unlimited  abandonment 
to  self,  as  would  make  him  heartily  ashamed  of 
himself,  and  lead  him  to  seek  purification  from 
God.  The  experience  of  evil  accordingly, 
which  has  been  inseparable  from  our  rational 
expansion,  is  strictly  tributary  in  the  Divine 
wisdom  to  a  good  which  otherwise  would  never 
have  dawned  upon  us ;  a  spontaneous  good,  as 
much  higher  than  the  merely  instinctual  good 
which  it  displaces  or  rather  exalts  to  a  higher 
power,  as  the  tried  wisdom  of  the  mature  man 
is  higher  than  the  tender  promise  of  childhood. 
This,  briefly  stated,  is  Swedenborg's  way  of 
dealing  with  the  problem  of  evil ;  and  I  for  my 
part  cannot  help  considering  it  a  very  satisfactory 
way,  until  I  am  shown  a  better.  It  has  at  least 
this  commanding  philosophic  advantage  over 
every  other  suggestion  I  have  met  with  on  the 
subject,  that  it  makes  evil  a  perfectly  intelligible 
incident,  no  longer  a  wholly  mysterious  accident, 
of  our  historic  progress:  so  leaving  it  to  under- 
go whatever  healing  modification  the  normal 
issues  of  that  progress  may  engender.  In  other 
words  it  relegates  the  origin  of  evil  away  back 
to  the  irutinSfiial  realm  of  life ;  and  inasmuch  as 
all  our  instincts  are  themselves  utterly  servile  to 
the  needs  successively  of  our  voluntary  and 
spontaneous  life,  of  our  moral  and  aesthetic  cul- 
ture, so  it  may  fairly  be  presumed  that  any  evil 
which  these  instincts  involve  will  ultimately  be 
found  to  have  been  itself  most  strictly  tributary 


6o  His  Sincere  Testimony 

to  a  good  in  human  nature  so  Divine,  that  the 
bare  conception  of  it  would  have  been  otherwise 
impossible. 

This  however  is  but  an  episode.  I  introduced 
it  only  to  illustrate  by  a  signal  instance  the  power 
which  Swedenborg's  view  of  our  natural  phe- 
nomenality  has,  to  shed  light  upon  the  most  in- 
tricate problems  of  human  origin  and  destiny  : 
and  so  engage  my  reader's  attention  to  what  I 
have  further  to  say.  What  I  want  my  reader  to 
observe  is  the  sincere  emphasis  which  Sweden- 
borg's doctrine  of  Nature  puts  upon  the  actual 
truth  of  creation  ;  the  fidelity  with  which  he 
insists  upon  man's  being  in  literal  strictness  a 
creature  of  God,  and  therefore  absolutely  void 
of  being-in-himsel£  This  fact  of  his  creature- 
ship  makes  it  impossible  for  him  to  claim  any- 
thing more  than  a  phenomenal  self  hood  or 
consciousness,  without  blinding  himself  intel- 
lectually to  the  creative  goodness  and  truth.  If 
he  be  by  nature  an  abject  and  total  dependent 
upon  God,  he  is  evidently  unentitled  to  selfhood 
or  personal  consciousness  save  by  a  constant  Di- 
vine communication  ;  save  by  a  ceaseless  Divine 
permission.  And  if  accordingly  he  comes  to  view 
the  truth  of  the  case  differently:  if  he  so  reckon 
upon  his  felt  absoluteness  or  self-sufficiency  as 
to  attribute  good  and  evil  to  himself:  it  will 
be  impossible  to  prevent  him  tumbling  inconti- 
nently into  every  baleful  illusion  of  pride,  and 
to  that  extent  excluding  himself  inwardly  or 
spiritually  from  God's  peace  and  purity. 

Thus  the  Bible  informs  us  in  mystical  phrase, 


to  the  a^ualiiy  of  Creation.  6l 

that  man  instinctively  feels  that  "  it  is  not  good 
for  him  to  be  alone : "  /.  e.  to  be  without  self- 
hood, without  the  faculty  and  the  dignity  of  fa- 
thering his  own  action.  In  other  words  man 
tends  inevitably  and  innocently  to  selfhood,  tends 
to  feeling  himself  the  source  of  his  own  affection 
and  thought  and  power.  And  God  mercifully 
accommodates  Himself  to  this  infallible  instinct 
of  the  creature,  in  providing  him,  as  the  mysti- 
cal record  further  alleges,  "a  help  meet  for  him:" 
/'.  e.  permits  him  to  realize  selfhood  and  bring 
forth  from  it  whatsoever  fruit  it  is  capable  of 
yielding.  But  then  the  Divine  Providence  thus 
authenticates  the  natural  instinct  of  the  creature 
not  absolutely  or  unconditionally,  but  exclusive- 
ly in  the  interest  of  the  latter's  eventual  and  per- 
fect spiritual  conjunction  with  Himself  He 
authenticates  this  instinctive  yearning  in  the 
creature  after  selfhood,  in  order  that  the  latter, 
being  thus  taught  how  stupid  and  vile  he  is  in 
himself  or  intrinsically  and  apart  from  the  Di- 
vine conjunction,  may  effectually  aspire  to  the 
knowledge  and  obedience  of  those  laws  of  Di- 
vine order  which  alone  give  him  rest.  In  other 
words  He  gives  the  creature  natural  selfhood,  or 
the  feeling  of  being  his  own  life,  only  in  order 
that  the  creature,  knowing  as  of  himself  vf\\:it  he 
is  by  uncreation,  so  to  speak,  or  natural  disjunc- 
tion with  God,  may  equally  as  of  himself  incline 
to  that  spiritual  conjunction  with  Him  which 
alone  is  life. 

Nothing  can  be  more  clear  than  that  the  im- 
mense mercy  with  which  the  Divine  Love   in- 


62  His  Sincere  Testimony 

wardly  vivifies  and  fills  out  this  illusion  on  man's 
part,  does  not  affect  its  essential  nature,  does  not 
make  it  any  less  an  illusion,  does  not  convert  it 
into  an  absolute  and  unqualified  reality.  If  self- 
hood, being  an  illusion  so  grateful  to  the  natural 
heart,  is  taken  advantage  of  by  the  Divine  wis- 
dom in  order  to  bring  about  a  spiritual  elevation 
of  the  creature  which  otherwise  would  have 
been  both  unattainable  and  inconceivable  :  that 
fact  must  not  blind  us  to  its  exact  character  as  an 
illusion,  nor  embolden  us  to  argue  from  it  to  the 
true  spiritual  relation  between  creator  and  crea- 
ture. We  may  indeed  pardon  this  fatuity  in 
uninstructed  minds ;  but  what  shall  we  say  of 
labored  systems  of  Theology  and  Philosophy, 
which  assume  the  unconditional  veracity  of  the 
moral  sentiment  as  their  base,  and  construct  a 
cosmology  upon  the  ground  not  merely  of  the 
creature's  seeming  —  but  of  his  real — indepen- 
dence of  the  creator?  Yet  this  is  the  fatal 
dry-rot  which  has  laid  low  every  edifice  reared 
by  Philosophy  since  the  beginning  of  history. 
Idealism  is  only  a  potent  testimony  to  the  ex- 
istence of  the  fatality:  it  furnishes  no  remedy 
against  it.  The  fact  is  Idealism  does  not  con- 
front the  philosophic  problem :  it  only  evades  it. 
The  whole  problem  of  Philosophy  is  to  vindi- 
cate the  actual  truth  of  creation,  by  reconciling 
the  freedom  of  the  creature  with  his  dependence 
upon  the  creator ;  or  harmonizing  the  apparent 
absoluteness  of  man  with  the  real  absoluteness 
from  which  he  all  the  while  confessedly  derives. 
And  the  way  Idealism  takes  to  solve  the  prob- 


to  the  aSluality  of  Creation.  63 

lem,  is  by  vacating  it  of  substance.  It  vindi- 
cates creation  by  denying  it  any  actuality ;  or 
reconciles  man  and  God,  creature  and  creator, 
finite  and  infinite,  phenomenal  and  absolute,  sim- 
ply by  confounding  them :  /.  e.  by  making  the 
created  consciousness  a  transient  form  or  mould 
of  the  uncreated. 

Swedenborg  is  the  first  man,  so  far  as  I  am 
aware,  in  the  literary  history  of  the  world,  who 
has  put  a  decisive  stop  to  this  philosophic  child's- 
play.  He  shows  with  commanding  evidence 
that  the  selfhood  of  man  is  a  reality  only  in 
God  and  not  out  of  Him;  and  that  there  is  no 
need  accordingly  to  sacrifice  either  element  of 
the  equation,  in  order  to  maintain  the  integrity 
of  the  other.  He  demonstrates  with  such  over- 
powering lustre  the  veritable  infinitude  of  the 
Divine  resources,  that  this  duality  of  creature 
and  creator  which  Philosophy  has  always  found 
so  paradoxical,  becomes  henceforth  common- 
place and  obligatory ;  so  that  I  at  least  do  not 
hesitate  to  avow  my  conviction  that  he  alone 
has  given  true  body  to  Philosophy,  and  put  her 
at  last  upon  a  career  of  literally  endless  prosper- 

I  said  just  now  that  Swedenborg  satisfies  the 
utmost  need  of  Philosophy,  by  showing  us  that 
the  selfhood  of  man  is  a  reality  only  ///  God  and 
not  out  of  Him,  as  our  sensuous  theologies  have 
hitherto  reported.  What  I  mean  by  this  state- 
ment is,  evidently,  that  Swedenborg  gives  such 
a  surprising  reality  to  the  creative  Love  —  so 
avouches  its  rational  infinitude  or  perfection  — 


64.  Infinite  Love  necessarily  Creative. 

that  we  instantly  see  man's  selfhood  or  freedom, 
with  all  those  infamies  that  attach  to  its  fullest 
expansion,  and  forcibly  disjoin  him  to  his  own 
consciousness  from  God,  completely  explained  and 
accounted  for ;  and  consequently  find  ourselves 
acknowledging  creation  no  longer  as  a  stupid 
intellectual  problem,  but  as  an  irresistible  postu- 
late of  the  heart.  Love  is  thus  the  final  word, 
the  grand  unuttered  secret  of  Philosophy:  infi- 
nite Love;  a  love  so  perfect,  so  untainted  with 
self-love  as  to  be  of  necessity  creative  :  /".  e.,  in- 
vincibly bent  upon  c ornmunic ating  its  own  un- 
stinted power  and  bliss  to  what  is  not  itself,  to 
what  indeed  is  the  exact  and  total  opposite  of 
Itself 

But  we  shall  best  do  justice  to  Swedenborg, 
and  put  ourselves  in  the  fittest  attitude  to  esti- 
mate his  great  services  to  Philosophy,  if  we  first 
of  all  bestow  a  cursory  glance  upon  the  very 
loose  state  of  things,  intellectually  viewed,  which 
under  the  name  of  religion,  and  the  science 
thence  derived,  constitutes  the  popular  culture 
of  Christendom.  Let  us  first  glance  at  those 
insufficiencies  in  the  strictly  religious  sphere  of 
thought,  which  call  so  loudly  for  some  authori- 
tative doctrine  of  Nature.  Afterwards  we  shall 
be  able  to  estimate  those  confessed  scientific  dis- 
abilities under  which  what  is  called  Philosophy 
now  labors. 


CHAPTER   III. 

The  scientific  difficulties  which  beset  Natu- 
ral Religion,  the  notoriously  endless  embarrass- 
ments it  offers  the  intellect,  reflect  the  native 
poverty  of  our  understanding  in  Divine  things, 
grow  out  of  the  habit  we  have  of  regarding  the 
natural  sphere  of  creation  as  final.  It  is  this 
futile  habit  of  mind  which  makes  us  look  upon 
the  sacred  writings  as  a  mine  of  literal  historic 
information  merely,  and  not  as  a  marvellous 
veiling  over  or  clouding  of  purely  spiritual 
truth,  in  accommodation  to  the  needs  of  our 
grossly  sensual  understanding. 

For  example :  the  opening  chapters  of  Gene- 
sis report  the  work  of  creation  as  proceeding 
from  the  great  orbs  of  space,  through  the  succes- 
sive orders  of  vegetable  and  animal  existence, 
until  it  attains  its  full  rich  diapason  in  man : 
thus  presenting  all  the  things  of  nature  as  col- 
lated into  and  culminating  in  the  human  form, 
which  in  point  of  instinct  or  natural  force  is  the 
feeblest  and  most  contemptible  of  all  forms,  by 
way  of  symbolizing  to  our  apprehension  the 
great  spiritual  verity  of  the  Lord  or  Divine 
Natural  Humanity,  as  alone  adequate  to  ac- 
count for  the  majesty  and  mystery  of  life. 

Now  natural  religion    degrades    this    superb 

5 


66  How  the  Letter  of  Revelation 

imagery  so  rich  in  philosophic  significance,  into 
a  narrative  of  so  many  Hteral  physical  exploits 
of  God  accomplished  in  space  and  time. 

So  also  when  the  Scripture,  having  thus  pos- 
ited man  as  the  consummation  of  nature's  forms, 
goes  on  to  represent  his  dawning  moral  con- 
sciousness under  the  image  o{  a  woman,  fashioned 
out  of  his  own  substance  while  he  sleeps^  natural 
religion  does  not  hesitate  to  transmute  this  per- 
fectly intelligible  symbol  of  the  gradual  unsus- 
pected rise  of  selfhood  in  man,  into  a  perfectly 
unintelligible  historic  fact;  into  a  perfectly  in- 
credible physical  procedure  of  God,  revolting 
alike  to  truth  and  decency. 

In  like  manner  again  when  the  sacred  narra- 
tive proceeds  to  symbolize  the  dawn  of  spirit- 
ual life  in  man,  or  the  access  of  conscience, 
resulting  from  his  discovery  of  the  profound 
inward  destitution  which  underlies  his  fair  out- 
ward seeming,  under  the  image  of  "  eating  of  a 
tree  called  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good 
and  evil:"-^  the  carnal  understanding  just  as 
little  stickles  to  sink  this  sublime  philosophic 
lesson  into  the  stupid  personal  fact  of  Adam's 
actual  lapse  from  the  Divine  favor  and  his  con- 
sequent subjection  to  death  temporal  and  eter- 
nal at  the  Divine  hands:  thus  reducing  the  high 
and  holy  Name  to  a  level  with  our  own  charac- 
teristic littleness  and  petulance.    [And  finally  it 


1  "  And  when  the  woman  saw  guided   exclusively  or  confiding 

that  the  tree  was  good  for  food,  in  his  own  wisdom  rather  than 

etc.,  SHE   took   of  the  fruit,  and  the    Divine,    clasps    the  shadow 

gave  also  to  her  husband,  and  he  of  truth    to   his   bosom   not   the 

did  eat :  "  i.  e.,  man  being  self-  substance. 


degrades  its  Spiritual  Contents.  67 

alleges  the  great  verity  of  the  Incarnation,  not 
by  any  means  as  the  sole  interior  life  and  sub- 
stance of  creation,  but  as  a  purely  empirical 
event  in  the  Divine  administration,  designed  to 
recall  creation  to  its  moorings  after  it  had  some- 
how unaccountably  gone  adrift  in  this  exqui- 
sitely absurd  and  imbecile  personality  of  Adam: 
precisely  as  if  God  were  some  unskilful  work- 
man, who  is  obliged  to  mend  his  work  immedi- 
ately that  he  has  dismissed  it  from  his  hands  as 
"  all  very  good." 

The  outrage  offered  to  the  reason  by  this 
childish  dogmatism,  is  obviously  insurmount- 
able^J  For  if  the  being  whom  God  creates  be 
literally  capable  of  going  astray,  the  discredit  of 
such  a  capacity  must  attach  exclusively  to  the 
Divine  name.  If  God  give  being  to  a  creature, 
and  this  creature  keep  not  the  estate  in  which 
he  was  created,  then  the  inference  is  not  to  be 
avoided,  that  the  creative  power  itself  and  alone 
is  at  fault:  that  it  is  by  no  means  an  infinite 
power  as  we  had  fondly  believed  :  that  it  is  so 
far  in  fact  from  being  infinite,  that  its  li?nttation 
proceeds  from  its  own  absolute  creature :  which  is 
probably  the  baldest  absurdity,  the  most  crying 
contradiction,  ever  offered  to  the  reason  since 
the  world  has  stood. 

Of  course  if  I  make  a  statue  of  Apollo,  and 
the  work  confess  itself  a  failure,  you  would  say 
the  failure  was  due  either  on  the  one  hand  to 
my  want  of  genius  to  conceive,  or  my  want  of 
skill  to  execute,  so  grand  a  work  :  or  else  on 
the  other  hand  to  some  latent  obduracy  of  my 


68  How  the  Letter  of  Revelation 

material,  which  no  genius  could  anticipate  and 
no  skill  overcome. 

But  this  alternative  is  wholly  lacking  in  the 
catastrophe  imagined  by  orthodoxy.  Orthodoxy 
alleges  that  God  makes  all  things  out  of  noth- 
ing, out  of  absolutely  no  material  whatever;  so 
that  if  they  turn  out  ill,  the  responsibility  of 
their  aberration  in  no  way  attaches  to  them- 
selves :  for  by  the  hypothesis  they  have  no 
selfhood  or  character  but  what  God  imposes 
upon  them,  being  summoned  into  instant  con- 
sciousness by  the  creative  fiat :  and  so  attaches 
wholly  to  their  maker.  The  orthodox  concep- 
tion is  that  the  creature  is  formed  out  of  abso- 
lutely nothing,  and  hence  is  utterly  destitute  of 
subjective  force  or  selfhood  apart  from  his  ob- 
jective being :  so  that  any  evil  which  may  ap- 
pear in  him  attributes  itself  instantly  to  the 
creator,  confesses  itself  exclusively  due  either  to 
His  original  want  of  genius  to  conceive,  or  His 
original  want  of  skill  to  execute,  a  perfect  work : 
in  short,  to  some  defect  in  the  creative  love  or 
wisdom,  or  both. 

The  mother  fallacy  which  breeds  all  these 
petty  fallacies  in  the  popular  understanding,  con- 
sists in  attempting  to  conceive  of  an  infinite 
power  acting  finitely,  or  under  the  limitations 
ot  space  and  time.  Natural  religion  conceives 
that  there  was  originally  a  space  where,  and  a 
time  when,  creation  was  not.  It  conceives  ac- 
cordingly that  these  two  great  idle  wildernesses 
of  time  and  space  were  inhabited  by  a  mute 
inactive  Deity  alone ;  and  that  this  extraordinary 


degrades  its  Spiritual  Contents.  60 

Deity,  tired  at  last  of  slumbering  in  eternal  sloth, 
sent  forth  a  great  creative  shout,  or  succession 
of  shouts,  which  made  the  existing  cosmos  sud- 
denly appear  as  if  it  had  always  been. 

Even  if  we  admit  this  hypothesis,  creation 
turns  out  a  vastly  greater  boon  to  the  creator 
than  it  does  to  the  creature.  Whatever  benevo- 
lence such  a  creation  may  be  argued  to  involve 
to  the  creature,  it  unquestionably  argues  much 
more  to  the  creator  himself  For  who  can 
fancy  the  ghastly  solitude  to  which,  for  so  many 
orthodox  eternities,  the  creator's  imputed  inac- 
tivity had  condemned  Him,  without  a  shudder 
of  boundless  horror  ?  And  who  therefore  can 
perceive  this  hideous  solitude  suddenly  blossom 
into  the  profusest  society,  without  feeling  that 
he  who  alone  had  encountered  the  past  desola- 
tion, was  infinitely  more  to  be  felicitated  upon 
the  present  surprising  transformation,  than  they 
who  were  to  have  only  an  ex  post  fa£lo  knowl- 
edge of  it  ?' 

But  the  whole  conception  is  boundlessly  and 
bewilderingly  absurd  ;  absurd  enough  to  nourish 
a  standing  army  of  famished  Tom  Paines  into 
annual  fatness.  There  were  no  time  and  space 
prior  to  creation,  simply  because  time  and  space 
are  experiences  of  the  finite  mind,  of  the  created 
consciousness  exclusively,  and  so  fall  within 
creation  not  outside  of  it.  They  are  constitu- 
tionally involved  in  all  purely  conscious  or  sub- 
jective existence  ;  time  having  no  meaning  save 
to  furnish  a  rational  or  relative  basis  —  space 
a   sensible   or   finite  basis  • —  to    such    existence. 


yo  Time  and  Space  Constitutional 

Without  time  I  should  have  no  logical  exist- 
ence, or  capacity  of  thought;  without  space, 
no  sensitive  existence,  or  capacity  of  affection. 
Were  it  not  for  the  logical  substance  or  back- 
ground which  time  furnishes  to  the  events  of 
history,  history  would  not  exist  to  me.  Were 
it  not  for  the  sensible  substance  or  background 
which  space  communicates  to  the  objects  of  na- 
ture, nature  herself  would  not  exist  to  me.  In 
short  the  very  stuff  of  my  intellect  and  sensibil- 
ity is  furnished  by  space  and  time,  so  that  in 
proportion  as  you  abstract  them  you  reduce  me 
to  blank  unconsciousness  or  non-existence.  Thus 
time  and  space  do  not  exist  in  themselves  (or 
apart  from  the  mind),  but  only  relatively  to  the 
human  subject ;  the  all  of  time  representing  the 
bounds,  thus  the  integrity,  of  human  thought ; 
the  all  of  space  the  bounds,  thus  the  integrity, 
of  human  passion :  so  both  alike  compelling, 
the  one  all  history,  the  other  all  existence,  within 
the  strictest  limits  of  the  human  form,  within  the 
straitest  dimensions  of  the  human  conscious- 
ness. 

We  do  not  see  Time  and  Space  to  be  what 
they  really  are,  mere  constitutional  conditions 
of  our  consciousness:  and  we  do  not  see  Nature 
consequently  to  be  what  she  really  is,  nothing 
more  and  nothing  less  than  the  contents  of  our 
universal  subjectivity,  made  visible  and  objective 
to  the  individual  or  derivative  subject:  because 
we  have  no  belief  in  the  real  universality  of  con- 
sciousness, but  only  in  its  phenomenal  individu- 
ality; because,  in  other  words,  our  reason  is  still 


Conditions  of  our  Consciousness.  71 

dominated  by  sense,  our  science  still  swamped 
in  imagination.  A  spiritual  intelligence,  which 
means  one  no  longer  dominated  but  on  the  con- 
trary completely  served  by  sense,  perceives  time 
and  space  as  embodying  the  true  and  entire 
mental  subjectivity  of  the  race  ;  and  as  having 
therefore  no  objective  truth  or  validity  save  to 
an  inferior  or  finite  and  derivative  suhjeBivity. 
Every  enlightened  person  perceives  the  true  sub- 
stances of  the  universe  to  be  exclusively  human 
or  spiritual,  as  goodness  and  truth,  love  and  wis- 
dom; and  regards  time  and  space  as  mere  sen- 
suous forms  or  appearances  of  these  realities, 
accommodated  to  the  needs  of  our  infantile  un- 
derstanding, by  dimly  imaging  or  symbolizing 
verities  which  it  is  as  yet  too  gross  to  appre- 
hend. Of  course  the  young  must  be  talked  to 
as  if  creation  took  place  in  space  and  time,  /.  e. 
as  if  it  were  a  purely  physical,  and  not  a  purely 
spiritual,  exertion  of  Divine  power.  Because 
as  they  are  still  under  the  dominion  of  sense  and 
incapable  of  spiritual  insight,  we  must  either 
clothe  our  instruction  in  parables  of  sensuous 
imagery,  or  else  give  up  instructing  them  alto- 
gether. But  our  orthodox  theologians  are  men 
in  understanding,  being  able  to  discern  spiritual 
truth  or  substance  in  its  own  light.  They  there- 
fore should  be  ashamed  to  regard  creation  as  a 
work  effected  by  God  in  space  and  time;  and 
should  insist  upon  regarding  it  exclusively  in  the 
light  shed  upon  it  by  the  great  truth  —  to  which 
moreover  they  profess  so  much  allegiance  —  of 
the    Incarnation;     /.    e.    as   a    work    Divinely 


72        Natural  Religion  affronts  the  Heart 

wrought  within    the  strictest   limits   of  human 
nature,  or  the  bosom  of  universal  man. 

After  all  however  the  decisive  reprobation 
which  the  traditional  cosmology  invites,  is  phil- 
osophic rather  than  scientific  ;  being  based  more 
upon  the  outrage  it  offers  the  heart  than  that 
which  it  offers  the  reason.  Natural  religion 
represents  creation  as  an  act  of  pure  will  on 
God's  part,  a  movement  of  simple  caprice,  in- 
volving therefore  not  one  particle  of  the  honest 
labor  and  sweat  which  go  to  the  execution  of 
any  humane  enterprise :  say,  the  growing  or  the 
making  or  the  baking  of  a  loaf  of  bread :  and 
consequently  forbidding  us  to  feel  a  single  spon- 
taneous emotion  of  gratitude  or  admiration  tow- 
ards Him.  I  cannot  possibly  feel  grateful  to 
any  one  for  giving  me  what  it  costs  him  nothing 
to  give;  what  he  may  just  as  easily  give  as  not. 
Nor  can  I  honestly  admire  any  being  for  doing 
what  there  is  no  opposition  to  his  doing;  my 
just  admiration  of  any  work  being  strictly  pro- 
portionate to  my  lively  appreciation  of  the  ob- 
stacles involved  in  its  execution.  The  human 
mind  in  fact  is  constitutionally  incapable  of  ac- 
knowledging any  excellence  which  is  not  of  its 
own  order  or  essentially  human;  that  is  to  say, 
which  does  not  express  in  some  manner  the  vital 
selfhood,  the  inmost  heart,  of  its  subject.  I  can 
perfectly  understand  and  appreciate  human  ac- 
tion, action  which  proceeds  from  within  out- 
wardly, or  which,  taking  its  rise  in  some  want 
of  the  heart,  fiows  down  through  the  channel 
of  the  understanding,  into  appropriate  word  or 


even  more  than  the  Head.  73 

deed.  Any  thing  lower  than  this  is  vegetable 
growth  or  animal  motion,  and  is  unworthy  the 
name  of  human  action.  And  any  thing  in  the 
way  of  action  higher  than  this  is  to  our  faculties 
simply  inconceivable  and  incredible. 

Accordingly  when  orthodoxy  commends  God, 
the  universal  creator,  to  our  rational  reverence 
and  affection,  under  the  guise  of  a  great  melo- 
dramatic being  so  essentially  heartless  as  to  live 
for  untold  eternities  without  feeling  any  desire 
for  companionship ;  so  essentially  irrational  that 
it  cost  him  no  effort  of  thought  to  summon  the 
universe  into  absolute  being :  I  repugn  the  in- 
struction as  converting  the  creative  virtue  into 
mere  personal  whim  or  caprice,  unworthy  of  a 
reasonable  man's  respect.  I  will  not  acknowl- 
edge a  God  so  void  of  human  worth ;  so  every 
way  level  to  the  character  of  a  mere  ostentatious 
showman  or  conjuror.  It  is  just  such  a  childish 
caricature  of  Deity  as  Byron  might  paint  to 
match  those  childish  caricatures  of  manhood 
with  which  his  purulent  imagination  runs  riot. 
I  am  constrained  by  every  inspiration  of  true 
manhood  to  demand  for  my  worship  a  perfectly 
human  Deity;  that  is  to  say,  a  Deity  who  is  so 
intent  upon  rescuing  every  creature  He  has  made 
from  the  everlasting  death  and  damnation  he 
bears  about  in  himself  as  jinitely  constituted^  as 
not  to  shrink  if  need  be  from  humbling  Him- 
self to  every  patient  form  of  ignominy,  and 
feeding  contentedly  year  in  and  year  out,  cen- 
tury after  century,  and  millennium  after  millen- 
nium, upon  the  literal  breath  of  our  self-righteous 


74  'The  Divine  Perfe^ion 

contempt.  In  short  I  hold  the  only  Deity 
worthy  a  human  being's  worship  to  be  the  God 
and  Father  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  to  be  the 
Divinity  revealed  in  that  perfect  Humanity ;  a 
Divinity  so  incapable  of  all  selfish  regards,  so 
poor  in  every  sentiment  and  resource  of  personal 
pride,  as  eternally  to  hide  Himself  under  the 
natural  conceit  and  tyranny  and  lust  of  His  own 
creatures,  if  thereby  He  may  spiritually  woo 
and  win  them  to  their  immortal  blessedness,  in 
the  free  participation  of  His  infinite  goodness 
wisdom  and  power. 

Surely  there  is  nothing  in  this  statement  which 
my  reader's  intelligence  is  not  prepared  to  ratify. 
No  one  of  my  readers  is  capable  of  feeling  the 
least  respect  for  an  idle  God,  any  more  than  for 
an  idle  man.  Every  one  respects  labor;  every 
one  respects  the  man  who  does  something  more 
to  vindicate  his  human  quality,  than  just  live 
upon  his  inheritance,  or  accumulated  ancestral 
fat.  And  every  one  despises  idleness ;  every  one 
despises  the  man,  who,  being  endowed  as  every 
man  is  by  his  maker  with  one  talent  or  two  tal- 
ents or  ten  talents  as  the  case  may  be,  yet  buries 
this  Divine  endowment  in  a  napkin  instead  of 
putting  it  out  to  profitable  use.  And  the  ground 
upon  which  these  judgments  proceed,  is  suffi- 
ciently obvious.  It  is  that  our  sentiment  of 
human  worth  is  violated,  when  we  see  one's 
strictly  original  or  spiritual  force,  one's  God- 
given  self,  left  out  of  one's  life ;  when  we  see  a 
man  content  like  a  pig  to  live  and  die  as  pas- 
sively as   he   was    begotten  and  born ;    content 


is  eminently  Human.  75 

to  wear  the  livery  of  his  splendid  but  tyrannous 
organization,  instead  of  compelling  that  organ- 
ization into  the  unstinted  service  of  his  own  in- 
effable spiritual  needs. 

The  natural  inheritance  of  every  one  who  is 
capable  of  spiritual  life,  is  an  unsubdued  forest 
where  the  wolf  howls  and  every  obscene  bird 
of  night  chatters ;  so  that  his  very  manhood  is 
contingent  upon  his  subduing  this  inheritance 
to  light  and  air,  and  making  it  yield,  instead  of 
its  wild  and  poisonous  undergrowths,  every  fruit 
good  for  food.  Every  man  who  has  reached 
even  his  intellectual  teens  begins  to  suspect  this; 
begins  to  suspect  that  life  is  no  farce;  that  it  is 
not  genteel  comedy  even ;  that  it  flowers  and 
fructifies  on  the  contrary  out  of  the  profoundest 
tragic  depths.  All  that  is  distinctive  in  human 
culture  betrays  an  ever  present  conflict  between 
the  inner  and  outer  life,  between  the  private  and 
public  soul,  and  exhibits  in  itself  that  conflict 
reconciled.  Whatsoever  is  noblest  in  human 
character,  best  in  human  action,  most  permanent 
in  human  achievement,  most  renowned  in  art, 
tells  only  of  obstacles  overcome,  of  difficulties 
toilsomely  vanquished,  in  short  of  hell  patiently 
subjugated  to  heaven,  or  evil  reconciled  to  good, 
in  some  higher  neutral  and  therefore  positive 
quantity  which  men  would  never  have  otherwise 
divined.  Even  the  least  human  of  our  endow- 
ments which  is  visible  beauty,  beauty  that  the 
senses  can  measure,  disdains  a  passive  genesis, 
proclaims  itself  the  immediate  offspring  of  a  mar- 
riage between   inward  soul  and  outward  body. 


76  Hhe  Divine  Perfection 

An  exquisitely  regular  face  is  not  apt  to  be  an 
interesting  one,  because  the  mere  mechanics  of 
beauty  are  almost  sure  to  prevail  in  it  over  the 
dynamics,  over  the  free  breezy  play  of  soul 
which  gives  that  mechanism  life  and  puts  it  in 
exhilarating  motion.  It  is  the  gaunt  preliminary 
framework  of  the  house,  rather  than  the  sunny 
completed  house  itself  It  is  the  skeleton  of 
beauty  without  the  warm  blood  and  rounded 
flesh  which  alone  make  the  skeleton  presentable. 
Indeed  our  experience  often  witnesses  that  the 
most  victorious  beauty  to  the  heart,  rises  sheer 
out  of  the  lap  of  ugliness,  exhibits  the  rich  ex- 
pressive soul  giving  endless  aggrandizement  to 
the  poor  penurious  body. 

But  I  have  no  need  to  heap  up  illustrations 
of  my  position,  since  my  reader  knows  as  well 
as  I  that  nothing  turns  out  permanently  valuable 
either  in  character  or  in  performance,  which  it  does 
not  cost  blood  of  the  mind  or  blood  of  the  body 
to  produce.  I  only  want  in  fact  to  signalize  to 
the  reader's  mind  this  indisputable  quality  of  hu- 
man worth,  the  highest  worth  we  recognize^  in 
order  to  claim  for  Deity  the  actual  perfection  of 
such  worth;  in  order  to  show  in  other  words 
that  such  being  our  most  characteristic  virtue  as 
spiritually  conjoined  with  God,  namely,  to  disre- 
gard self,  or  freely  consume  it  in  our  devotion  to 
truth  and  beauty  :  such  ?mist  be  the  characteristic 
perfection  of  our  creative  source :  under  penalty 
of  the  creature  having  failed  to  image  his  creator. 
If,  as  the  good  book  avers,  the  blood  constitute 
the  life ;  if,  in  other   words  man  is  pronounced 


is  eminently  Human.  77 

man  by  the  supremacy  of  his  heart  to  his  head, 
or  his  power  of  self-abandonment  to  what  is  not 
himself:  then  God  as  being  the  height  of  all 
character,  must  be  the  essential  perfection  of 
heart,  the  absolute  infinitude  of  love :  /.  e.  must 
be  creative.  For  this  is  the  essential  implication 
of  an  infinite  love,  that  it  have  so  little  regard  for 
self  as  of  necessity  to  alienate,  or  communicate 
to  another,  what  is  its  own  ;  as  eternally  to  make 
itself  over  in  fact  to  what  is  not  itself,  to  what 
indeed  is  diametrically  hostile  to  itself 


CHAPTER   IV. 

Now  it  is  just  this  essentially  creative  aspect 
of  the  Divine  perfection,  just  this  very  infinitude 
of  the  Divine  Love,  regarded  not  as  a  passive 
but  as  an  active  quantity ;  not  as  an  idle  orna- 
mental fixture  of  the  Divine  name,  but  as  the 
actual  working-force  of  all  the  effects  of  the 
universe,  turning  every  thing  into  miracle:  which 
Natural  Religion  blinks  wholly  out  of  sight, 
and  which  Revelation  alone  discloses  to  philo- 
sophic recognition.  Revelation  makes  creation^ 
as  contradistinguished  from  redemption^  a  purely 
objective  work  of  God,  consisting  in  such  a  com- 
plete surrender  ot  Himself  to  the  creature,  as  that 
the  total  honor  and  glory  of  His  name  shall  be 
submerged,  and  nothing  emerge  but  the  bound- 
less pride  of  the  human  heart,  and  the  boundless 
folly  of  the  human  mind.  And  clearly  Philos- 
ophy regarded  as  the  exponent  of  creation,  as 
the  voucher  of  the  Infinite  and  Absolute  in  the 
finite  and  relative,  is  deaf  to  any  lower  inspira- 
tion than  this.  Not  alone  Philosophy  indeed, 
but  common  sense,  prescribes  that  the  creature, 
simply  because  he  is  a  creature,  /.  e.  another  than 
God,  must  be  in  himself  or  subjectively  consid- 
ered, the  total  unflinching  and  intense  opposite 
of  God.       His  very  nature   as   a  creature,   his 


The  Divine  Humiliation.  79 

intrinsic  aptitude,  is  death;  just  as  that  of  his 
creator  is  Hfe.  In  this  state  of  things,  how  shall 
he  ever  become  i^^-conscious,  unless  this  very 
death  which  he  is  in  himself,  or  naturally  and 
apart  from  the  creator,  become  organized  in 
living  form,  in  forms  at  all  events  of  quasi  or 
phenomenal  life :  unless  in  other  words  the  cre- 
ator condescend  to  the  native  limitations  of  the 
creature,  and  give  him  subjective  or  conscious  be- 
ing, by  Himself  unstintedly  quickening  all  his 
intrinsic  ignorance  poverty  and  imbecility  ? 

The  creature  as  such  must  be,  in  himself  or 
naturally,  the  exact  inversion  of  what  the  cre- 
ator is  in  Himself;  impotent  where  He  is  omnip- 
otent, ignorant  where  He  is  omniscient,  replete 
with  evil  where  He  is  perfect  in  good :  the  ex- 
act office  of  the  creative  substance  01  energy 
being  to  make  this  natural  wilderness  of  the 
creature  the  blossoming  and  fruitful  garden  of 
His  own  power  and  wisdom  and  goodness. 
The  indispensable  condition  of  the  creature's 
self-consciousness  is  that  the  creator  actually 
come  down  to  his  level,  by  orga?iizing  his  endless 
natural  want^  or  quickening  it  with  His  own 
deathless  substance.  The  creator  must  not 
merely  intellectually  acquiesce  in  this  natural 
infirmity,  this  intrinsic  death  or  destitution  of 
the  creature,  as  the  creature's  rightful  and  in- 
alienable heritage,  as  in  fact  the  sole  inexpugna- 
ble basis  of  his  identity:  He  must  also  cordial- 
ly accept  it  as  the  only  possible  basis  of  His  own 
redemptive  exploits^  the  only  and  all-sufficient  ar- 
gument and  opportunity  of  His  own  matchless 


8o  The  Creature  must  necessarily 

power  and  wisdom.  Creation  would  be  a  mani- 
fest contradiction  on  any  lower  terms.  Were 
the  creature  good  in  himself  and  not  evil ;  were 
he  naturally  like  God  in  place  of  being  wholly 
unlike  Him ;  then  he  would  be  God  and  not 
himself:  for  what  is  good  in  itself,  or  what  of 
its  own  nature  is  like  God,  is  God,  and  cannot 
therefore  be  created.  Thus  the  fundamental 
condition  of  a  true  creation  is,  that  it  first  of 
all  permit  the  creature  to  expand  to  the  fullest 
extent  of  his  native  or  intrinsic  worthlessness ; 
that  it  make  him  perfectly  cognizant  in  other 
words  of  his  essential  imbecility  and  evil.  We 
should  otherwise  lack  every  conceivable  guaran- 
tee of  the  validity  of  creation ;  because  in  that 
case  the  creature  would  remain  forever  destitute 
of  true  or  genuine  self-consciousness,  consequent- 
ly of  every  thing  which  could  possibly  separate 
him  from  Deity.  In  short  whatever  is  logic- 
ally implied  in  his  nature  as  a  created  or  finite 
being,  must  come  to  consciousness  within  him 
so  as  really  to  constitute  him  to  his  own  intelli- 
gence ;  otherwise  he  will  never  get  the  slightest 
projection  from  his  creative  source  :  /.  e.  the 
slightest  experience  of  himself:  and  conse- 
quently far  from  being  a  man,  he  will  not  even 
be  a  mineral.  The  very  infinitude  of  the  Di- 
vine power  prevents  Him  giving  being  to  the 
creature  without  the  implication  of  an  organized 
natural  selfhood ;  the  actuality  of  the  creation 
bearing  the  strictest  ratio  to  the  validity  of  this 
selfhood;  /.  e.  being  contingent  upon  the  crea- 
ture freely  exhibiting  in  himself  the  exact  total 


antagonize  the  Creative  Perfe5fion.         81 

and  uncompromising  opposite  of  every  Divine 
perfection. 

Such  undeniably  is  the  Hmitation  which  the 
creature  imposes  upon  the  creative  power.  And 
one  sees  at  a  glance  that  the  limitation  is  fatal, 
unless  the  creator  possess  really  infinite  resources. 
To  make  creation  at  all  conceivable  the  creator 
must  be  animated  by  a  love  without  limit  to  the 
creature :  for  how  can  we  conceive  of  a  finite 
love  communicating  itself  to  what  is  intrinsically 
hostile  or  repugnant  to  itself'?  Finite  love  is 
self-love;  since  nothing  limits  the  love  we  bear 
to  others  but  the  love  we  bear  ourselves ;  and  if 
consequently  there  were  the  least  taint  of  self- 
love  in  the  creator,  creation  would  have  been 
impossible.  For  the  creature  is  necessarily  (z.  e. 
by  the  exigency  of  his  own  identity)  antagonis- 
tic to  the  creator;  and  it  is  absurd  to  suppose 
self-love  capable  of  originating  things  contrary 
to  itself  It  is  in  fact  the  exact  distinction  be- 
tween God's  love  and  ours,  that  the  former  is 
essentially  creative,  the  latter  destructive. 

There  is  no  way  of  denying  the  creative  in- 
finitude but  by  denying  the  creative  holiness. 
If  you  choose  to  say  that  lying,  adultery  and 
murder  are  akin  to  the  heart  of  God,  then  of 
course  you  may  argue  that  creation  costs  Him 
nothing;  is  in  fact  a  mere  flurry  of  His  pent-up 
idle  force  liable  to  be  as  capriciously  undone  as 
it  was  capriciously  begun :  but  not  otherwise. 
If  you  believe  that  these  things  are  infinitely 
contrary  to  the  heart  of  God :  if  you  believe 
that  God  has  never  been  soothed  but  always 


82  Personality  the  true 

outraged  by  the  envy  and  the  malice,  by  the 
subtle  perfidy  and  the  open  rancor,  which  have 
envenomed  human  intercourse  in  all  the  past; 
then  you  must  admit  that  the  love  which  goes 
to  the  creation  of  man,  in  whom  all  these  odi- 
ous things  naturally  inhere,  and  to  the  endowing 
him  with  the  sceptre  of  universal  dominion,  is 
really  infinite ;  since  it  cannot  go  forth  save  in 
the  way  of  its  own  eternal  humiliation. 

In  very  truth  this  altogether  unobtrusive  fact 
of  selfhood  or  natural  life  which  we  are  all  born 
to,  and  which  we  therefore  think  nothing  of 
but  accept  as  a  mere  matter  of  course,  is  itself 
the  eternal  marvel  of  creation.  We  ourselves 
can  modify  existence  almost  at  pleasure;  we  can 
change  the  form  of  existing  things;  /.  e.  can  con- 
vert natural  forms  into  artificial  ones.  But  we 
cannot  confer  life ;  cannot  make  these  artifi- 
cial forms  self-conscious  or  living.  We  can 
turn  a  block  of  wood  into  a  table,  a  block  of 
stone  into  a  statue  ;  but  our  work  in  no  wise 
reflects  the  vivacity  of  Nature,  because  we  not 
being  life  in  ourselves,  cannot  possibly  commu- 
nicate life  to  the  work  of  our  hands.  We  frame 
a  beautiful  effigy  of  life  ;  but  the  effigy  remains 
forever  uninhabited,  forever  irresponsive  to  the 
love  which  fashions  it ;  in  short  forever  uncon- 
scious or  dead. 

Now  the  splendor  of  the  creative  activity  is, 
that  it  makes  even  this  effigy  of  itself  alive  with 
the  amplest  life;  its  product  being  no  cold  in- 
animate statue,  but  a  living  breathing  exulting 
person.     In  short  the  everlasting  miracle  is  that 


Marvel  of  Creation.  83 

God  is  able,  in  giving  us  Himself,  to  endow  us 
with  our  own  finite  selfhood  as  well;  leaving 
us  thereby  so  unidentified  with  Himself,  so  ut- 
terly free  and  untrammelled  to  our  own  con- 
sciousness as  to  be  able  very  often  seriously  to 
doubt,  and  not  seldom  permanently  to  deny 
His  own  existence.  And  this  miracle  I  say  is 
utterly  inexplicable  upon  any  datum  but  that  I 
have  alleged,  namely :  that  God  is  so  truly  infi- 
nite in  love  as  not  to  shrink  from  shrouding 
His  uncreated  splendor  in  His  creature's  linea- 
ments, from  eternally  humiliating  Himself  to 
the  lowest  possibilities  of  creaturely  imbecility 
and  iniquity,  in  order  that  the  creature  may 
thus  become  freely  or  spiritually  elevated  to 
the  otherwise  impracticable  heights  of  His  ma- 
jestic wisdom  and  goodness. 

I  ask  no  indulgence  of  my  reader  for  this 
language.  I  literally  mean  what  I  say,  that 
creation  is  absolutely  contingent  upon  the  Divine 
ability  to  humble  Himself  to  the  creature's  level, 
to  diminish  Himself  to  the  creature's  natural 
dimensions.  Language  is  incapable  of  paint- 
ing too  vividly  the  strength  of  my  convictions 
on  this  subject.  If  the  creature  by  the  bare 
fact  of  his  creatureship  be  demonstrably  void 
of  life  in  himself,  then  the  creator  can  only 
succeed  in  rescuing  him  from  this  intrinsic 
death,  and  elevating  him  to  Himself,  by  first 
abasing  Himself  to  the  creature ;  /.  e.  allowing 
His  proper  infinitude  or  perfection  to  be  so 
swallowed  up  in  the  other's  proper  finiteness 
or  imperfection,  as  never  by  any  possibility  to 


84  The  Creature's  Identity 

come  into  the  least  overt  collision  with  it.  Thus 
whenever  I  draw  a  breath  or  perform  any  auto- 
matic function ;  when  I  see  or  hear  or  smell  or 
taste  or  touch  ;  when  I  hunger  or  thirst;  when 
I  think  or  take  cognizance  of  any  truth  ;  when 
I  glow  with  passion ;  when  I  do  good  or  evil 
to  my  fellow-man  ;  my  ability  in  all  these  cases 
is  due  exclusively  to  that  great  truth  clearly  re- 
vealed in  Christianity,  and  revealed  nowhere 
else,  in  fact  utterly  denied  everywhere  else, 
namely:  that  God's  love  to  me  is  so  truly  infi- 
nite^ i.  e.  untainted  by  the  least  admixture  of 
love  to  Himself,  as  to  permit  Him  within  the 
entire  periphery  ot  my  consciousness  physical 
intellectual  and  moral,  to  veil  Himself  so  effec- 
tually from  sight,  to  obscure  and  as  it  were  an- 
nihilate Himself  so  completely  on  my  behalf, 
that  I  cannot  help  feeling  myself  to  exist  abso- 
lutely or  irrespectively  of  Him,  and  enjoy  a 
conscious  ability  not  only  to  do  what  is  congru- 
ous with  His  ultimate  good  pleasure  in  me,  but 
to  abound  if  I  please  at  any  moment  in  all  man- 
ner of  profane  injurious  and  filthy  behavior. 

In  short  and  to  sum  up  all  I  have  said  in 
one  word:  the  interests  of  the  creature's  natural 
identity  are  the  paramount  concern  of  the  crea- 
tive Love.  To  establish  these  interests  on  an 
impregnable  basis,  and  so  make  them  eternally 
tributary  to  the  creature's  spiritual  individuality, 
constitute  it  may  be  said  the  sole  burden  of  the 
creative  Wisdom,  It  is  manifestly  impossible 
that  the  creature  should  ever  realize  that  spirit- 
ual conjunction  with  the  creator  which   is  life. 


the  Prime  Interest  of  Creation.  85 

unless  he  first  exist  in  some  form  of  his  own ; 
unless  he  get  at  all  events  a  q^uasi  projection 
from,  or  disjunction  with,  the  creator  by  coming 
to  a  veracious  consciousness.  And  existence  or 
consciousness  is  impossible  ot  course,  unless 
NATURAL  selfhood  be  allowed  him,  unless,  in 
other  words,  that  common  principle  of  destitution 
which  characterizes  all  creatures,  regarded  in 
themselves  or  intrinsically  and  apart  from  the 
Divine  conjunction,  become  vivified  by  the  cre- 
ative bounty,  and  so  furnish  a  valid  ground  of 
consciousness  to  him,  on  which  any  amount  of 
spiritual  intercourse  between  him  and  his  creator 
may  subsequently  be  transacted.  My  nature  ex- 
presses what  I  have  in  common  with  all  other 
existence,  thus  what  gives  me  identity :  i.  e. 
what  forever  fixes  or  finites  me  to  my  own 
consciousness,  and  to  others'  regard ;  and  with- 
out this  natural  root  I  should  be  utterly  incapa- 
ble of  that  rational  growth  and  spiritual  flower- 
ing or  fructification  which  we  call  individuality 
or  character.  All  true  character  in  me,  all  my 
distinctive  individuality,  is  what  the  heat  of 
God's  goodness  and  the  light  of  His  truth  alone 
bring  forth  out  of  that  subterranean  root :  so 
that  without  His  tender  and  solicitous  nourish- 
ment arresting  its  downward  growth  and  giving 
it  a  contrary  direction,  the  root  would  stretch 
evermore  and  irresistibly  downward  to  the  low- 
est hell. 

But  here  lies  the  practical  difficulty  to  which 
I  have  already  adverted,  as  calling  for  all  the 
resources  of  the  Divine  infinitude  to  overcome 


86  TLc  Pra^iial  Obstacle  to  it 

it.  The  very  nature  of  the  creature  puts  such 
an  obstacle  in  the  way  of  creation,  that  unless 
the  creative  Love  were  really  infinite,  that  is, 
wholly  unlimited  by  self-love,  it  would  be  im- 
possible to  vanquish  it.  For  manifestly  the  es- 
sential nature  of  the  creature  as  a  creature,  /.  e. 
as  a  being  wholly  dependent  upon  another  than 
himself,  is  what  alone  gives  him  identity,  by 
stamping  him  at  once  as  the  total  opposite  of 
God,  or  declaring  him  to  be  absolutely  non- 
existent, intrinsically  full  of  death,  incapable  of 
being.  His  nature  is  wo/-to-be,  just  as  God's 
is  to-be:  so  that  he  cannot  possibly  begin  to  be, 
until  this  very  nature  of  his  has  been  Divinely 
quickened,  or  raised  trom  death  to  lite.  The 
first  care  of  the  creator  is  to  give  the  creature 
identity,  or  eternal  projection  from  Himself;  and 
what  we  call  his  nature,  /.  e.  what  he  possesses 
in  common  with  all  existence,  is  the  only  possi- 
ble or  veracious  ground  of  this  identity.  But 
the  nature  of  the  creature,  what  he  has  in  com- 
mon with  all  existence,  is  an  utter  intrinsic  des- 
titution of  life,  is  an  intrinsic  plenitude  of  death 
so  to  speak.  It  is  therefore  manifestly  impossi- 
ble for  the  Divine  Love  to  give  actual  being  to 
the  creature,  with  any  regard  to  the  latter's  con- 
scious permanence  or  identity,  unless  this  very 
death  which  is  the  substance  of  the  created  na- 
ture become  taken  up  into  some  superior  form 
of  life ;  unless  this  very  destitution  which  is  the 
sole  badge  of  the  creature's  identity,  and  the 
sole  guarantee  of  the  veracity  of  his  conscious- 
ness,  be   Divinely   glorified  into  some  form  of 


in  the  Nature  of  the  Creature.  87 

spiritual  abundance.  The  creative  power  of 
course  encounters  no  spiritual  obstacle,  because 
manifestly  the  creature  is  spiritually  null  or  non- 
existent and  unconscious,  until  he  has  been  first 
of  all  naturally  vivified:  /'.  e.  until  that  invinci- 
ble subjection  to  death  which  his  very  nature 
lays  him  under,  has  been  previously  vanquished 
by  the  Divine  power,  and  corruption  given  place 
to  incorruption. 

Natural  religion  is  of  course  indifferent  to  all 
these  considerations  of  method  or  order  in  the 
Divine  creation.  It  regards  creation  not  as  a 
rational  or  orderly  procession  of  the  Divine 
spirit  into  every  appropriate  form  of  manifesta- 
tion; but  as  a  mere  brute  display  of  physical 
power  on  God's  part,  the  same  in  kind  but  dif- 
ferent in  degree  from  that  we  attribute  to  the 
conjuror  or  magician.  Magical  power,  the 
power  of  bringing  something  out  of  nothing, 
is  the  sole  conception  the  natural  religionist  en- 
tertains of  the  Divine  activity;  he  regards  the 
physical  constitution  of  things  as  a  wholly  arbi- 
trary or  unconditioned  product  of  the  Divine 
will,  and  supposes  it  undesigned  to  minister  to 
any  deeper  consciousness  in  us  than  that  of  sense. 

It  is  in  fact  the  prerogative  of  Revelation  to 
assert  this  great  redemption  of  human  nature,  as 
the  inmost  scope  and  substance  of  God's  crea- 
tive energ}'.  Revelation  alone  shows  us  how 
God  is  able  to  invest  His  creature  with  a  selfhood 
which  shall  be  indisputably  his  own,  and  so  in- 
exorably separate  him  to  all  eternity  from  his 
creator,  even  while  inviting  and   engaging  the 


88  Revelation  alone  competent  to  the  ^/estion. 

most  intimate  spiritual  conjunction  with  Him. 
It  does  this  by  sharply  separating  between  the 
conscious  and  the  unconscious  realm  of  life  in 
man,  or  proving  that  our  moral  righteousness  is 
in  every  case  an  inverse,  and  not  a  direct,  meas- 
ure of  our  spiritual  relation  to  God.  This  is  the 
great  commanding  light  which  Revelation  be- 
stows upon  the  intellect ;  and  unless  Philosophy 
therefore  consent  to  accept  its  guidance,  she  will 
remain  hereafter  as  thoroughly  incompetent  to 
the  conduct  of  the  mind  as  she  has  always  proved 
herself  hitherto  ;  and  must  erelong  definitively 
avow  herself,  what  all  her  recent  aspirations  bind 
her  to  become,  the  humble,  besotted,  and  yet 
most  superfluous  waiting-maid  of  Science. 

Let  us  examine  however  with  some  attention 
the  existing  attitude  of  Philosophy  with  respect 
to  the  fundamental  verity  of  an  actual  creation. 


CHAPTER  V. 

To  create  a  thing  means  obviously  to  give  it 
inward  substance  or  being;  but  as  nothing  can 
inwardly  be  unless  it  also  outwardly  exist,  or  go 
forth  in  its  proper  form,  so  consequently  when 
God  is  said  to  create  or  give  being  to  things,  it 
is  manifestly  implied  that  He  gives  them  their 
own  distinctive  form  or  selfhood  as  well.  In  a 
word  the  idea  of  objective  creation  philosophi- 
cally involves  or  presupposes  a  subordinate  pro- 
cess of  subjective  formation  or  redemption ;  be- 
cause otherwise  the  creature  must  fail  to  attain  to 
that  conscious  identity,  or  projection  from  his 
creative  source,  which  is  essential  to  the  integrity 
and  actuality  of  the  creative  work. 

It  is  the  business  of  Philosophy  to  vindicate 
this  invariable  implication  of  form  in  substance 
to  popular  regard.  For  everywhere  the  unin- 
structed  mind  demands  how  any  such  experience 
as  this  I  have  just  painted,  should  ever  actually 
arise  ?  This  consciousness  of  selfhood  in  the 
creature,  how  shall  it  ever  be  able  to  attain  to 
veracity  ?  How  shall  it  ever  be  able  practically 
to  come  about "?  If  the  creature  be  the  abject 
and  utterly  dependent  offspring  of  the  Divine 
power,  how  is  it  possible  that  He  should  ever 
feel  in   the  slightest  measure  that  sentiment  of 


90  Philosophy's  true  Fun^ion. 

purely  personal  force  and  dignity,  which  throbs 
in  every  pulse  of  morality^  If  my  being  lie 
most  distinctly  in  another  than  myself^  how  shall 
I  ever  have  the  power  to  say,  or  even  to  think, 
me  mi'ne^  thee  thine^  him  his,  i.  e.  to  project  myself 
to  such  a  distance  both  from  my  creative  source 
and  my  fellow-creature,  as  to  feel  my  own  inex- 
tinguishable property  in  myself,  and  inevitably 
to  claim  the  responsibility  of  my  own  actions'? 
In  short  how  shall  creation  ever  become  actual, 
ever  prove  anything  more  than  a  form  of  imper- 
fect human  thought,  than  a  figure  of  delusive 
human  speech  ? 

All  these  questions,  I  say,  which  are  the  bane 
of  the  popular  understanding,  it  is  the  business 
of  Philosophy  alone  to  elucidate;  for  Philoso- 
phy assumes  to  be  the  exponent  intellectually 
of  creation,  or  to  reconcile  God  and  man.  From 
the  beginning  of  history  the  aim  of  Philosophy 
has  been  to  avouch  the  purely  spiritual  origin 
and  quality  of  life;  to  assert  the  underlying  infin- 
itude which  embeds  all  finite  existence,  and  lifts 
it  eventually  out  of  the  chaos  it  is  in  itself,  into 
the  foundations  of  a  lustrous  city  worthy  the 
eternal  King  to  inhabit.  Philosophy  is  thus  a 
most  strict  demonstration  of  the  Infinite  within 
the  finite,  of  the  Absolute  within  the  relative; 
and  her  very  existence  accordingly  should  bind 
her  to  permit,  much  more  to  offer,  no  damage 
to  the  minor  interest.  If  the  Infinite  and  Ab- 
solute dwell  within  the  finite  and  relative  as  the 
soul  dwells  within  the  body,  that  is  to  say,  not 
spatially    indeed    or    mechanically   as   a    tenant 


Treachery  of  Philosophers  to  it.  91 

dwells  within  a  house,  or  a  sword  in  its  scabbard, 
but  spiritually  or  dynamically  as  the  cause  dwells 
within  the  effect,  or  life  within  the  subject  of 
life,  or  thought  within  speech :  then  of  course 
Philosophy  is  bound  to  cherish  the  finite  and 
relative  with  peculiar  tenderness,  not  on  their 
own  account  primarily  of  course,  but  because 
they  alone  house  and  they  alone  reveal  that 
transcendent  substance  whereby  she  lives. 

But  now  how  actually  stands  the  case  with 
Philosophy  ?  Does  Philosophy  as  at  present 
constituted  appear  to  feel  any  longer  the  force 
of  these  ancient  obligations  ?  Not  a  whit.  She 
is  on  the  contrary  utterly  faithless  to  them.  Either 
with  Kant  and  Sir  William  Hamilton  she  pu- 
sillanimously  evades  them,  by  denying  the  vera- 
city of  our  knowledge  of  the  finite,  and  hence 
putting  our  belief  of  the  Infinite  upon  a  mere 
arbitrary  basis,  authority ;  or  else  with  Hegel 
she  audaciously  vacates  them,  by  denying  the 
duality  of  infinite  and  finite,  of  God  and  man ; 
so  converting  what  we  have  been  wont  to  deem 
a  sincere  work  of  creation  into  a  frivolous  game 
of  bo-peep  on  God's  part,  seeking  to  come  to 
the  consciousness  of  His  proper  infinitude  by 
undergoing  the  temporary  imprisonment  and 
obscuration  of  the  finite.  Creation  thus  carica- 
tured claims  of  course  no  more  essential  dignity 
than  the  chase  of  the  kitten  after  its  own  tail. 
Sir  William  Hamilton  justly  enough  regards 
"  the  science  of  the  absolute  "  in  Hegel's  hands 
as  a  mere  dodge  of  the  difficulties  accruing  to 
Philosophy  from  the  Kantian  metaphysics.     Yet 


92  Sir  William  Hamilton  makes 

even  that  dodge  is  in  my  opinion  greatly  less 
discreditable  to  its  authors,  and  evinces  a  far 
more  sagacious  feeling  of  the  needs  of  Philos- 
ophy, than  Sir  William's  own  shallow  and  bois- 
terous effort  to  push  these  metaphysics  to  their 
last  gasp  of  absurdity. 

The  way  Sir  William  Hamilton,  following 
Kant,  takes  to  demonstrate  the  incompetency 
of  Philosophy  to  justify  our  religious  instincts, 
or  formulate  a  doctrine  of  creation  which  shall 
be  adequate  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  the  intel- 
lect, is  by  showing  that  we  are  incapable  of  ar- 
riving at  the  infinite  in  knowledge,  save  by  the 
utter  degradation  and  demolition  of  the  finite. 
He  insists  upon  the  internecine  hostility  ot  In- 
finite and  finite,  of  God  and  nature,  with  such 
heartiness  of  good  will,  as  to  make  out  that  the 
reality  of  the  one  in  knowledge  is  inevitably 
fatal  to  that  of  the  other;  the  relation  between 
them  being  not  reciprocally  affirmative  but  sim- 
ply contradictory.  He  takes  the  greatest  pains 
to  show  that  we  must  necessarily  ignore  the 
infinite  and  absolute  merely  because  we  know 
the  finite  and  relative :  since  the  latter  exclude 
the  former  instead  of  revealing  them.  In  fact 
he  devoted  his  lively  powers  to  such  a  thorough 
degradation  of  our  knowledge,  as  makes  it  no 
longer  a  trust-worthy  instrument  and  vehicle  — 
I  will  not  say  of  revealed  or  spiritual  truth  alone, 
but  —  even  of  the  lowest  sensual  information: 
and  then  called  the  ghastly  residuum  Philos- 
ophy. Thus  according  to  Sir  William's  show- 
ing Philosophy  excludes  us  not  only  from  the 


Scepticism  the  true  basis  of  Faith.  93 

heavenly  bread  which  has  hitherto  been  our 
nutriment,  not  only  from  the  fatted  calf  of  the 
paternal  mansion,  but  also  from  the  very  husks 
which  the  swine  themselves  eat,  under  the  plea 
that  the  whole  thing  is  a  delusion  and  mockery 
of  true  nourishment. 

The  fundamental  axiom  of  the  Kantian  meta- 
physics, which  is  the  spring-board  of  all  Sir 
William  Hamilton's  speculative  agility,  is  that 
the  forms  of  our  sensibility  and  intelligence  so 
dominate  the  data  of  our  knowledge  as  to  leave 
us  utterly  ignorant  of  "  real "  existence,  thus 
forcing  us  upon  scepticism  as  the  highest  cul- 
ture. The  forms  of  our  intelligence  so  modify 
the  contents  of  sense  and  reason,  that  we  know 
nothing  truly,  /.  e.  as  it  is  in  itself,  but  only  phe- 
nomenally or  as  it  appears  under  the  shaping  and 
depraving  influence  of  our  own  faculties.  Sir 
William  Hamilton  not  only  accepted  this  dap- 
per little  pedantry  as  the  consummate  deliver- 
ance of  Philosophy,  as  the  true  measure  of  our 
intelligence,  but  he  disgorged  all  the  accumu- 
lations of  his  plethoric  memory,  and  lavished 
every  secretion  of  his  frenzied  faculty  of  no- 
menclature, to  illustrate  and  universalize  it. 
The  intellectual  heart  of  the  philosopher  grew 
so  superfluous  upon  this  delirious  diet,  that  he 
at  last  fancied  himself  doing  his  fellow-men  a 
service  rather  than  an  injury,  in  persuading  them 
that  they  could  have  no  true  knowledge  of  God 
even  by  means  of  a  dire^  revelation  from  Himself. 
A  God,  he  says,  who  is  capable  of  being  intel- 
ligently recognized,   is   no   God    at  all.     Even 


94      Kant  makes  Real  Things   Unintelligif?le 

God's  own  good-will  is  shown  to  be  powerless 
in  the  premises:  /.  e.  will  avail  to  make  us  know 
Him,  not  as  He  is  in  truth,  but  only  as  He  con- 
trives to  appear  in  some  fallacious  effigy  ap- 
proximate to  our  intelligence.  It  of  course 
results  that  any  absolutely  trustworthy  knowl- 
edge of  God  either  as  creator,  redeemer  or  ad- 
ministrator of  the  world,  is  intellectually  vision- 
ary and  presumptuous,  and  each  of  us  is  left 
accordingly  to  such  conceptions  of  the  Divine 
Name  as  ignorance  and  superstition,  which  alone 
rule  in  the  absence  of  knowledge  and  true  phi- 
losophy, suggest. 

But  let  us  look  a  little  more  closely  at  our 
subject.  The  soul  of  Kant's  egregious  discrimi- 
nation of  noumena  from  phenomena,  is  that  things 
are  their  own  (unintelligible)  substance  as  well 
as  their  own  (intelligible)  form.  Both  Kant 
and  Sir  William  Flamilton  conceive  every  thing 
under  two  modes  :  one  substantial,  which  is  the 
thing-in-itself ;  the  other  formal,  which  is  not  the 
thing  as  it  is  in  itself^  but  only  as  it  appears 
under  the  modifying  and  misleading  lights  of 
our  intelligence.  Thus  the  horse  passing  my 
window  at  this  moment  is  in-himself  or  really, 
his  own  unintelligible  substance;  but  in  us,  that 
is,  through  the  modifying  and  indeed  most  mag- 
ical forms  of  our  understanding,  he  becomes 
converted  from  reality  into  phenomenalit}^ :  in 
other  words,  from  unintelligible  becomes  intelli- 
gible. And  they  both  maintain  that  do  what 
we  will,  even  with  God  helping  us,  we  can 
never  know   the   "  real "  animal,  but  only   this 


and  Intelligible  'Things  Unreal.  g^ 

base  sophisticated  one.  Indeed  they  will  not 
even  permit  themselves  to  postulate  so  much  as 
existence  for  these  quizzical  noumena ;  author- 
izing only  the  most  rapid  mental  glimpse  of 
them  in  the  interest  of  that  overpowering  scep- 
ticism which  they  conceive  to  be  due  to  phenom- 
ena. Hence  these  jolly  philosophers  conclude, 
that  our  knowledge  being  so  uncertain,  nay,  so 
directly  misleading  in  respect  to  the  truth  of 
things,  as  to  be  far  less  honorable  to  us  than  our 
ignorance,  is  unworthy  to  base  any  assured  system 
of  beliefs:  so  that  Philosophy,  which  is  the 
science  of  belief,  incontinently  confesses  herself 
under  this  compulsion  exanimate  or  empty  for 
want  of  subject  matter  to  fill  her  out.  In  plain 
English,  the  decrepit  old  dame  tumbles  into  such 
ecstasies  of  alarm  at  the  voice  of  the  stout  un- 
filial  footpads,  whom  her  own  penurious  paps 
have  starved  into  matricide,  as  instantly  to  sur- 
render all  she  is  traditionally  worth,  in  order  to 
save  her  henceforth  worthless  life. 

What  is  the  intellectual  motive  of  all  this 
talk  on  the  part  of  Kant  and  his  follower  Sir 
William  Hamilton,  about  "things-in-themselves" 
or  noumena  as  constituting  the  only  realities, 
while  their  phenomenal  apparitions  in  sense 
and  reason  are  respectively  unreal^  Their  mo- 
tive is  honorable.  It  is  to  get  rid  thereby  of 
the  traditional  conception  of  creation,  and  so 
discharge  Philosophy  of  a  burden  to  which  in 
their  estimation  she  is  incompetent,  that  namely 
of  avouching  the  Infinite  and  Absolute  in  knowl- 
edge.     Both  Kant  and  Sir  William  Hamilton 


^6  Sir  William  Hamilton  runs 

entertained  a  purely  scientific  conception  of  cre- 
ation, never  for  an  instant  a  philosophic  one,  the 
conception  which  science  inherits  from  Natural 
Religion,  and  which  makes  creation  a  work  of 
God  in  space  and  time ;  /.  e.  to  consist  in  endow- 
ing things  with  finite  or  at  most  relative  exist- 
ence ;  so  sundering  them  forever  from  the  im- 
mortal being  they  have  in  God.  Of  course  any 
such  beggarly  style  of  existence  as  this  must 
confess  itself  unvivified  by  the  Highest ;  and 
Philosophy  therefore  as  the  science  of  being 
must  confess  herself  nonplussed.  By  the  show- 
ing of  these  bastard  disciples  accordingly  Philos- 
ophy is  not^  what  all  her  legitimate  children  have 
hitherto  deemed  her,  namely:  a  perfect  intellect- 
ual justification  of  the  religious  instinct,  the 
instinct  which  prompts  mankind  to  aspire  after 
an  intimate  and  exact  knowledge  of  God.  On 
the  contrary,  she  declares  herself  in  their  hands 
a  remorseless  traitor  both  to  religion  and  to 
science,  in  avouching  the  utter  fatuity  of  our 
knowledge.  Our  knowledge  —  if  we  believe 
these  exquisitely  fuddled  adepts — exercises  ^uch 
a  witchery  over  its  own  contents,  that  it  is  im- 
prudent to  confide  in  it  except  when  it  is  inert. 
For  the  moment  it  is  exerted  it  imposes  such 
a  change  upon  the  thing  known,  that  the  thing 
becomes  at  once  and  adroitly  converted  from 
the  "  real  "  thing,  or  thing-in-itself^  into  a  mere 
changeling  substituted  by  the  fairy  forms  of  our 
sensibility  and  intelligence.  Thus  our  knowl- 
edge is  no  longer  a  figurative  confession  ot  our 
ignorance,  but,  according  to  Sir  William  Ham- 


Kant's  Do^rine  into  the  Ground.  97 

ikon  especially,  who  is  merely  Kant  gone  to 
seed,  a  literal  demonstration  of  it.  It  fell  to  Sir 
William's  lot  to  utter  a  vast  deal  of  error  upon 
every  metaphysic  topic  he  broached ;  but  it 
all  aspired  to  this  triumphantly  paralytic  re- 
sult, namely  :  —  not  that  our  actual  knowledge 
quantitatively  viewed,  or  as  measured  against 
the  still  remaining  depths  of  our  ignorance, 
sinks  into  vanity :  this  is  an  obvious  dictate  of 
common  sense :  but  —  that  knowledge  itself 
qualitatively  viewed,  or  regarded  as  knowledge, 
IS  IGNORANCE  .'  since  whatsoever  is  known  be- 
comes by  that  fact  unreal,  and  whatsoever  is 
real  becomes  by  that  fact  unknown  and  un- 
knowable. For  example :  there  fnay  be  such  a 
being  as  God ;  there  ?nay  be  such  an  existence 
as  a  horse :  but  Philosophy  does  not  and  cannot 
say  whether  there  is  or  is  not.  All  that  she  is 
able  to  say  intelligently  is,  that  if  either  the  one 
or  the  other  object  does  really  exist,  it  will  be 
forever  prevented  by  that  fact  from  becoming 
known  :  because  knowledge  has  no  relation  to 
real  things,  but  only  to  the  ghosts  or  apparitions 
of  real  things. 

Into  such  bewildered  gabble  as  this  have  "the 
lispings  of  divine  Philosophy"  become  trans- 
muted at  last!  Would  you  not  infer  that  Kant 
and  Sir  William  Hamilton,  but  especially  Sir 
William,  who  is  as  vivacious  in  absurdity  as 
Kant  is  dull  and  operose,  propose  no  other  des- 
tiny for  Philosophy  than  to  reduce  her  to  the 
dimensions  of  an  intricate  "  Irish  bull  " '? 

However  this  may  be,  Philosophy  by  the 
7 


98  Between  the  two  Philosophy 

showing  of  her  most  approved  disciples  has 
plainly  reached  a  crisis  in  her  history,  such  a 
crisis  as  augurs  either  an  everlasting  and  most 
righteous  entombment  for  her,  or  else  a  speedy 
resurrection.  In  place  of  giving  us  as  she  once 
aspired  to  do,  improved  conceptions  of  the  high- 
est themes,  she  sets  herself  to  deny  us  the  power 
of  conceiving  of  any  theme  save  in  a  puerile 
misleading  way.  She  not  only  extrudes  us  in- 
tellectually from  the  actual  though  rude  home 
which  has  hitherto  sheltered  us  from  the  weather, 
but  she  turns  us  into  a  set  of  disreputable  de- 
spairing tramps  eternally  incapable  o{  any  home: 
starving  with  a  most  vital  cold  and  hunger,  and 
yet  knocking  at  the  doors  of  our  intellectual 
grandees  only  to  get  informed  by  some  authen- 
tic supercilious  Yellowplush,  that  bed  and  board 
are  in  the  very  nature  of  things  illusory  goods, 
which  every  philosophic  outcast  and  vagabond 
ought  to  be  above  seriously  coveting.  In  short 
in  thus  unsettling  the  principles  of  our  knowl- 
edge Philosophy  a  fortiori  exposes  our  most 
assured  beliefs  to  an  utter  downfall;  for  belief 
rests  upon  knowledge  as  a  house  rests  upon  its 
foundation. 

Decidedly  then  one  owes  no  apology  to  Phi- 
losophy for  saying  that  she  is  at  the  turning- 
point  of  her  destiny,  and  that  unless  she  gather 
herself  up  out  of  the  mire  in  which  she  is  wal- 
lowing, it  will  soon  be  all  over  with  her.  It  is 
true  that  Kant  devolves  upon  the  moral  instinct, 
as  Sir  William  Hamilton  devolves  upon  a  blind 
faith,  the  duty  from  which  they  severally  absolve 


is  Reduced  to  a  Pious  Hiccup.  99 

Philosophy,  that  of  conducting  men  to  the  In- 
finite in  knowledge.  But  what  is  this  but  to 
exhibit  Philosophy  transferring  to  other  hands 
her  own  appropriate  office  of  mediating  between 
heaven  and  earth,  between  religion  and  science, 
between  truth  and  fact,  between  life  and  exist- 
ence, while  she  herself  urges  upon  us  instead  a 
lesson  of  abject  helpless  scepticism  with  refer- 
ence to  both  interests  ?  Philosophy  proper  ac- 
cording to  both  of  these  authorities  utterly  re- 
fuses any  longer  to  function,  being  incapable 
even  of  recognizing  any  infinite  or  any  finite, 
any  absolute  or  any  relative,  much  more  of  rec- 
onciling them  in  eternal  amity.  Suppose  you 
should  instruct  your  attorney  to  sue  a  certain 
person  for  the  recovery  of  moneys  due,  and  the 
attorney  should  reply  that  there  was  such  a  hope- 
less dislocation  to  his  mind  between  you  and 
your  debtor,  such  an  ever  growing  indistinctness 
of  boundary  between  the  parties,  as  to  make  it 
impossible  for  him  to  conceive  where  creditor 
ended  and  debtor  began :  would  you  not  say, 
my  friend,  you  are  manifestly  drunk  and  unfit 
for  business  "?  When  Philosophy  then  presents 
herself  in  precisely  similar  plight,  so  drunken 
with  the  new  wine  of  science  as  to  renounce 
her  own  sober  heavenly  speech,  and  attempt 
putting  off  upon  us  this  desperate  and  maudlin 
cant  of  the  highest  reason  being  ever  the  highest 
uncertainty^  and  the  truest  knowledge  the  truest 
ignorance,  let  us  scourge  the  brazen  trollop  from 
our  doors,  and  give  her  prison  fare  till  she  mends 
her  manners. 


100  Philosophy  wholly  unharmed 

I  know  that  a  fashionable  scepticism  prevails 
just  now  among  learned  doctors,  as  to  the  abil- 
ity of  Philosophy  to  recover  from  her  long  de- 
bauch, and  vindicate  by  future  services  the  essen- 
tial divinity  of  her  origin.  M.  Juguste  Comte  for 
example  who  styled  himself,  and  what  is  even 
more  extraordinary  believed  himself,  fondateur 
de  la  religion  dc  I'humanite,  and  his  greatly  more 
sprightly  disciple  Mr.  G.  H.  Lewes,  author  of 
'The  Biographical  History  of  Philosophy,  do  not 
hesitate  to  deride  any  such  possibility,  and  pro- 
nounce the  illustrious  sufferer  already  dead.  But 
both  of  these  gentlemen  exhibit  so  very  jolly  a 
demeanor  upon  the  occasion,  leering  at  such  a 
rate,  as  Dr.  Wilkinson  has  observed,^  upon  the 
chambermaids,  and  thrusting  their  tongues  so 
significantly  into  their  cheeks  at  the  bystanders, 
that  you  at  once  detect  the  evidence  of  some 
foregone  conclusion,  or  at  all  events  distrust  the 
judgment  ot  an  intelligence  which  begins  in  so 
little  sympathy.  M.  Comte  especially  whatever 
may  have  been  his  merits  as  a  scientific  observer, 
upon  which  I  am  utterly  unskilled  to  pronounce, 
was  ludicrously  devoid  of  philosophic  insight. 
He  so  persistently  rubbed  the  nose  of  his  intelli- 
gence in  the  mud  of  mere  Existence,  so  wilfully 
restricted  its  complacent  feet  to  paddling  in  the 
shallowest  waters  of  Fact  that  he  became  obdu- 
rately blind  to  all  the  higher  problems  of  Life 
and  Truth,  and  ended  by  running  the  stupendous 
edifice  of  human  destiny  into   a  thing  of  such 

1  See   his  striking    Review   of     The  Democratic  Re-jieiu  oi  some 
Lewes'  History  of  Philosophy,  in     ten  years  since. 


by  the  Positivists.  101 

abjectly  culinary  dimensions  as  would  revolt 
even  the  imagination  ot  a  cook.  It  was  the 
case  of  a  serious-minded  conceited  hodman  fan- 
cying himself  an  architect,  and  aspiring  to  con- 
struct a  new  Alhambra  or  St.  Peter's. 

No  man  of  Comte's  intellectual  make  has  the 
slightest  title  to  prejudice  the  question  in  hand, 
because  he  has  no  apprehension  of  the  spiritual 
uses  of  Philosophy,  which  alone  supply  the  clew 
to  its  solution.  The  grand  use  of  Philosophy 
is  to  promote  the  spiritual  understanding  in  man, 
by  disengaging  the  infinite  in  human  conception 
from  the  grasp  of  the  finite,  or  what  is  the  same 
thing,  revealing  the  latent  harmony  which  pre- 
vails between  being  and  seeming,  between  sub- 
stance and  form,  between  spirit  and  flesh.  Evi- 
dently then  the  very  first  requisite  to  a  competent 
judgment  of  Philosophy  is,  that  one  believe  in 
the  Infinite  at  least  as  tnuch  as  he  believes  in  the 
finite,  or  be  quite  as  unwilling  to  see  religion 
merge  in  science  as  to  see  science  absorbed  by 
religion.  None  of  these  men  fulfil  this  condi- 
tion. They  all  admit  the  Finite,  but  they  scout 
the  Infinite  out  of  sight  as  a  rational  cognition. 
They  perfectly  believe  in  science,  but  they  have 
a  total  disbelief  in  religion  save  as  an  early  ne- 
cessity of  the  scientific  intellect,  or  at  best  a 
courteous  doffing  of  the  hat  to  Deity.  They 
are  consequently  all  alike  incompetent  to  esti- 
mate the  grandly  reconciling  genius  and  func- 
tion of  Philosophy,  just  as  incompetent  as  a  one- 
legged  man  would  be  to  run  a  race,  or  a  one- 
eyed  man  to  appreciate  the  stereoscope.     It  is 


102  The  total  Probkfn  of  Philosophy 

ludicrous  to  suppose  Philosophy  endangered  by 
any  amount  ot  such  lap-sided  hostility:  you 
might  as  well  fancy  a  clear-shining  candle  in 
danger  of  extinction  from  the  widowed  moiety 
of  an  original  pair  of  snuffers. 

As  I  have  already  intimated  a  much  less  famous 
but  in  my  opinion  very  superior  man  to  either 
of  these  great  men  or  indeed  to  all  of  them  put 
together,  has  already  fulfilled  every  demand  ot 
Philosophy,  in  strict  accordance  too  with  a  phil- 
osophic temper;  that  is,  without  either  coward- 
ice or  bravado.  Swedenborg  disperses  all  the 
shallow  sciolism  we  have  been  discussing,  by  sol- 
idly vindicating  the  philosophic  basis  of  creation. 
He  demonstrates  that  the  sole  real  existence,  the 
only  possible  ground  of  consciousness,  for  the 
creature  in  so  far  as  he  is  a  creature,  is  phenome- 
nal ;  thus  virtually  scourging  the  conception  of 
noumenal  existence  as  distinguished  from  phe- 
nomenal forever  out  of  sight.  He  demonstrates 
beyond  the  possibility  of  a  rational  cavil  that 
the  pretension  of  nournenal  existence  on  the  part 
of  a  creature,  the  pretension  to  possess  existe?ice- 
in-himself,  is  absurd  or  contradictory;  and  so 
turns  Philosophy  from  a  suicidal  chase  of  phan- 
toms into  a  living  and  loving  recognition  of  the 
Infinite  within  the  very  bosom  of  the  finite,  of 
the  Absolute  within  the  very  bosom  of  the  rela- 
tive. 

The  total  problem  of  Philosophy  is,  to  recon- 
cile freedom  with  dependence;  or  to  show  how 
finite  may  be  incessantly  vivified  by  infinite, 
without  necessary  inflation  to  the  lower  interest 


is  to  reconcile  Freedom  with  Dependence.    103 

or  necessary  collapse   to   the   higher :    in    short 
with    reciprocal    advantage    to    both    interests. 
This  problem   I  delight  to  repeat  has  been  for 
the  first  time  in  the  intellectual  history  of  the 
race,  virtually  solved  by  Emanuel  Swedenborg. 
This  great  man  perfectly  vindicates  what  is  at 
once  the  eternal  truth  and  the  eternal  marvel  of 
creation,  by  proving  to  us  that  God  is  able  to 
endow  his  creature  with  selfhood,  or  make  him 
the  unquestionable   source  of  his  own  actions, 
not  only  without  in  the  least  degree  vitiating, 
but  while  actually  intensifying  the  creature's  de- 
pendence upon  Himself     And  he  does  this  with 
no  metaphysical  straining  or  scholastic  posturing, 
such  as  fatigue  you  to  death  in  the  pages  of  the 
philosophic     eunuchs    whose    shrill     discordant 
voices  alone  possess  the  public  ear  :  but  simply 
by  alleging  the  Divine  infinitude  not  indeed  as 
an  irrational  quantity  or  faculty  of  endless  hocus- 
pocus^  but   as  the   most  actual  and  intelligible 
working-power  of  the  universe;  and  by  deduc- j^ 
ing  therefrom  those  spiritual  laws,  the  conditions  | 
of  man's  true  being  as  natural  laws  are  those  of  |, 
his  phenomenal  being,  to  which  alone  we  must  ji 
look  henceforward  for  an  answer  to  every  ques-  I' 
tion   touching  human   freedom   or  human   des- ' 
tiny. 

In  thus  avowing  my  intellectual  obhgations 
to  Swedenborg's  writings,  I  have  no  wish  to 
conceal  my  honest  sense  of  their  conventional 
Jiterary  limitations.  I  fully  concede  indeed  to 
Swedenborg  what  is  usually  denied  him,  name- 
ly, an  extreme  sobriety  of  mind  displayed  under 


104  Swedenborg  solves  it  honestly 

all  the  exceptional  circumstances  of  his  career, 
and  which  ends  by  making  us  feel  at  last  his 
every  word  to  be  almost  insipid  with  veracity. 
I  cordially  appreciate  moreover  the  rare  destitu- 
tion of  wilfulness  which  characterizes  all  his 
researches ;  or  rather  the  childlike  docility  of 
spirit  which  leads  him  to  seek  and  to  recognize 
under  all  the  most  contradictory  aspects  of  na- 
ture, the  footsteps  of  the  Highest.  But  I  should 
be  sorry  to  commend  him  to  the  attention  of 
our  mere  men-of-letters.  There  seems  a  ludi- 
crous incongruity  for  example  between  his  grim 
sincere  performances  and  the  enamelled  offspring 
of  Mr.  Tennyson's  muse,  or  the  ground-and- 
lofty-tumbling  of  an  accomplished  literary  acro- 
bat like  Macaulay.  It  is  evident  that  he  himself 
never  once  dreamed  of  conciliating  so  dainty  a 
judgment.  It  would  be  like  trying  the  main- 
sail of  a  man-of-war  by  a  cambric  handkerchief 
His  books  are  a  dry  unimpassioned  unexagger- 
ated  exposition  of  the  things  he  daily  saw  and 
heard  in  the  world  of  spirits,  and  of  the  spirit- 
ual laws  which  these  things  illustrate;  with 
scarcely  any  effort  whatever  to  blink  the  ob- 
vious outrage  his  experiences  offer  to  sensuous 
prejudice,  or  to  conciliate  any  interest  in  his 
reader  which  is  not  prompted  by  the  latter's 
own  original  and  unaffected  relish  of  the  truth. 
Such  sincere  books  it  seems  to  me  were  never 
before  written.  He  grasped  with  clear  intel- 
lectual vision  the  seminal  principles  of  things, 
and  hence  is  never  tempted  to  that  dreary  So- 
cratic   ratiocination  about   their    shifting  super- 


and  without  Ostentation.  lo^ 

ficial  appearances,  which  give  great  talkers  a  re- 
pute for  knowledge.  Full  however  as  his  books 
are  on  this  account  of  the  profoundest  philo- 
sophic interest,  they  naturally  contribute  almost 
nothing  to  one's  scientific  advantage.  You  need 
never  go  to  them  for  any  direSf  help  upon  exist- 
ing social  or  scientific  problems.  You  might  as 
well  go  to  a  waving  wheat-field  to  demand  a  loaf 
of  bread.  Just  as  in  the  latter  case  before  get- 
ting one's  loaf,  one  would  be  obliged  to  harvest 
his  wheat  and  convert  it  into  flour,  and  then  con- 
vert the  flour  itself  into  dough,  and  afterwards 
allow  the  dough  to  ferment  before  putting  it  in 
the  oven  and  baking  his  bread:  so  in  the  former 
case  before  getting  the  slightest  scientific  aid 
from  Swedenborg,  he  will  be  obliged  first  of  all 
intellectually  to  harvest  his  spiritual  principles, 
and  then  gradually  bring  them  down   through 

the   hopper   of  his   imperious   daily   needs,   and ; 

under  the  guidance  of  the  great  truth  of  human 
equality  or  fellowship,  into  social  and  personal 
applications  wholly  unforeseen  I  doubt  not  and 
perhaps  undreamt  of  by  the  author  himself 


CHAPTER   VI. 

Our  business  however  does  not  lie  with  Swe- 
denborg  himself  in  any  degree,  but  with  his 
doctrine  of  Nature,  or  the  very  direct  and  enor- 
mous bearing  which  his  disclosures  of  spiritual 
laws  exert  upon  Philosophy.  I  say  emphati- 
cally his  doctrine  of  Nature :  for  although  it 
is  true  that  Nature  in  Swedenborg's  view  occu- 
pies a  strictly  subordinate  position  with  respect 
to  Spirit,  the  position  indeed  of  a  foundation 
with  respect  to  its  superstructure,  it  is  none  the 
less,  therefore,  but  only  all  the  more  true,  that 
upon  the  infinitude  of  the  Divine  power  as  ex- 
hibited primarily  in  the  natural  sphere  of  crea- 
tion, will  depend  the  infinitude  of  His  love  and 
wisdom  as  they  are  subsequently  to  be  disen- 
gaged in  the  spiritual  sphere. 

The  most  fundamental  of  all  the  laws  of  spir- 
itual existence  upon  which  Swedenborg  insists, 
is  that  of  the  strict  involution  of  the  natural  world 
in  the  spiritual,  so  as  that  the  former  could  no 
more  exist  without  the  latter,  than  an  effect 
could  exist  without  a  cause,  a  glove  without  a 
hand,  a  mould  without  a  substance  to  be  mould- 
ed, a  skin  without  a  something  to  be  covered ; 
nor  the   latter  subsist  without  the   former  any 


Swedenborg's  DoBnne  of  Nature.        107 

more  than  a  cause  could  subsist  without  an 
effect,  a  soul  without  a  body,  affection  without 
thought,  thought  without  speech,  speech  with- 
out organs.  "  All  natural  goods  and  truths,"  he 
says,  "  exist  and  descend  from  celestial  and  spir- 
itual goods  and  truths ;  for  there  is  not  a  single 
natural  good  and  truth  which  does  not  exist 
from  a  spiritual  good,  which  itself  exists  from 
a  celestial  good ;  and  by  these  also  it  subsists. 
Were  the  spiritual  world  to  recede  from  the 
natural,  the  natural  world  would  cease  to  be. 
The  origin  of  the  universe  is  in  this  wise :  All  "v 
things  in  general  and  particular,  are  from  the 
Lord :  from  Him  is  the  celestial  man ;  through 
the  celestial  again  the  spiritual ;  through  the 
spiritual  in  its  turn,  the  natural;  and  through 
the  natural  the  corporeal  and  sensual  man.  And 
as  each  thus  exists  or  goes  forth  from  the  Lord, 
so  also  each  subsists  or  endures  by  Him :  for 
subsistence,  as  is  known,  is  perpetual  exist- 
ence."^ 

"  The  sensual  life  is  the  lowest  or  ultimate 
form  of  human  life :  and  what  is  the  lowest  or 
ultimate  contains  all  higher  or  interior  things, 
and  is  their  common  ground  or  covering,  for  they 
terminate  in  it  and  so  rest  upon  it.  The  case  is 
similar  with  the  skin,  which  being  the  outmost 
integument  of  the  body,  and  therefore  the  conti- 
nent of  all  its  interior  things,  these  latter  termi- 
nate in  it  and  thus  rest  upon  it.  Similar  also  is 
the  case  with  the  peritoneum  in  the  body,  in 
which    the    abdominal    viscera    are    enveloped : 

1  Arc.  Cel.,  775. 


lo8        Swedenhorg's  Do^rine  of  Nature. 

these  also  rest  upon  it,  and  have  a  common  tie 
with  it ;  as  the  thoracic  viscera  have  also  with 
the  pleura.  The  case  is  similar  also  with  respect 
to  the  things  of  the  intellect  and  will  in  man. 
There  is  in  these  things  an  orderly  succession 
from  interior  to  exterior;  exterior  things  being 
the  pursuits  and  pleasures  of  science,  while  ex- 
treme things  are  the  sensual  delights  which  com- 
municate with  the  world,  by  the  organs  of  sight 
hearing  taste  smell  and  touch  :  upon  these,  inte- 
rior things  rest,  because  in  these  they  terminate. 
It  is  to  be  observed  moreover  that  all  things  in 
whole  and  in  part  from  the  First  or  Inmost  pro- 
ceed successively  to  their  ultimates,  and  there 
rest.  Prior  or  interior  things  also  in  successive 
order  are  linked  with  ultimate  things,  so  that  if 
the  ultimate  things  were  taken  away,  the  higher 
or  interior  would  also  disappear.  Hence  also 
there  are  three  heavens,  the  inmost  or  third 
heaven  influencing  the  middle  or  second  one, 
and  this  again  influencing  the  lowest  or  first 
heaven,  while  this  last  in  its  turn  influences  man 
(on  earth)  :  which  makes  the  human  race  the 
orderly  ultimate  in  which  heaven  ends  and  in 
which  it  reposes.  It  is  on  this  account  that  the 
Lord  of  his  Divine  mercy  always  provides  that 
a  church  may  exist  with  the  human  race,  in 
which  the  Divine  Truth  may  be  revealed  which 
in  our  earth  is  the  Word.  This  revelation  af- 
fords an  enveloping  link  {continens  nexus)  be- 
tween the  human  race  and  the  heavens.  Hence 
it  is  that  throughout  the  Word  an  internal  sense 
lies  hidden,  which  the  angels  perceive  and  which 


Swedenborg's  Do^rine  of  Nature.        109 

binds  their  minds  so  closely  to  ours,  that  both 
act  as  one."^ 

If  you  demand  the  philosophy  of  this  arrange- 
ment, or  ask  why  it  is  on  the  one  hand  that 
spirit  thus  involves  nature  as  a  cause  involves  its 
effect,  or  as  soul  involves  body;  and  why  it  is 
on  the  other  hand  that  nature  evolves  spirit,  as 
an  effect  evolves  its  cause,  or  as  body  evolves 
soul ;  he  will  reply  by  telling  you  with  the  ut- 
most profuseness  of  detail  and  explanation,  that 
life  being  spiritual  cannot  be  created  but  only 
communicated ;  and  in  order  to  such  communi- 
cation some  basis  must  exist  adequate  to  insure 
it.  This  is  his  complete  reply  to  your  question, 
confirmed  and  illustrated  by  any  amount  of  learn- 
ing. God  Himself  is  life:  so  that  to  create  life 
would  be  to  create  Himself,  which  is  absurd. 
He  cannot  possibly  create  life  consequently,  but 
only  communicate  it;  and  in  order  to  His  doing 
so  forms  must  exist  adequate  to  receive  the  com- 
munication, and  house  it  to  eternity.  Read  for 
example  the  following  passages,  which  might  be 
indefinitely  multiplied. 

"  Life  viewed  in  itself  which  is  God,  cannot 
create  another  which  shall  be  life  itself,  for  the 
life  which  is  God  is  uncreated  continuous  and 
indivisible  ;  whence  it  is  that  God  is  one.  But 
the  life  which  is  God  can  create  forms  out  of  sub- 
stances that  are  not  life,  in  which  it  may  indwell, 
making  them  to  seem  as  if  they  lived  (of  them- 
selves). Men  are  such  forms,  which,  since  they 
are  receptacles  of  life,  could  not  in  the  first  crea- 

1  Arc.  Cel.,  9216. 


lio        SwedeJiborg's  Do^rinc  of  Nature. 

Hon  be  anything  but  images  and  likenesses  of 
God,  images  from  being  receptacles  of  truth  and 
likenesses  from  being  receptacles  of  good.  For 
life  and  its  recipient  subject  adjust  themselves  to 
each  other  like  active  and  passive,  but  do  not 
commingle.  Accordingly  human  forms  which 
are  recipients  of  life,  do  not  live  from  themselves 
but  from  God,  who  alone  is  life,  wherefore,  as  is 
known,  all  good  in  the  heart  and  all  truth  in  the 
intellect  is  from  God.  For  if  the  slightest  con- 
ceivable measure  of  life  belonged  to  man,  he 
might  occupy  a  meritorious  position  towards 
God ;  whereas  if  he  believe  this  to  be  the  case, 
the  form  recipient  of  life  becomes  closed  from 
within,  is  perverted,  and  his  understanding  per- 
ishes. Good  and  the  love  of  it,  truth  and  the 
belief  of  it,  are  the  life  which  is  God  :  for  God 
is  good  itself  and  truth  itself,  and  therefore 
dwells  in  all  good  and  truth  with  man.  It  fol- 
lows from  these  premises  that  man  in  himself  is 
nothing,  and  that  he  is  so  much  only  as  he  re- 
ceives from  the  Lord,  in  the  acknowledgment 
that  it  is  not  his  own,  but  the  Lord's.  In  this 
case  the  Lord  makes  him  to  be  something, 
though  not  from  himself  but  from  the  Lord. 

"  It  appears  to  man  as  if  he  lived  from  himself; 
but  this  is  a  fallacy.  If  it  were  not  so,  he  might 
have  loved  God  from  himself,  and  been  wise 
from  himself  The  cause  of  this  appearance 
with  man  is,  that  life  inflows  from  God  into  his 
inmost  parts,  which  are  remote  from  the  survey 
of  his  thought,  and  hence  from  perception.  Be- 
sides, the  principal  cause  which  is  Life,  and  the 


Swedenborg's  Do^rine  of  Nature.         1 1 1 

instrumental  cause  which  is  the  form  recipient 
of  Hfe,  act  together  as  one  cause  ;  and  this  action 
is  felt  in  the  instrumental  cause,  thus  in  man,  as 
if  it  were  in  himself  The  fallacy  is  similar  to 
that  by  which  we  feel  that  the  light  from  which 
sight  comes  is  in  the  eye,  the  sound  from  which 
hearing  comes  is  in  the  ear,  and  so  forth  ;  where- 
as in  truth  eyes,  ears,  and  so  forth,  are  organic 
recipient  substances,  thus  instrumental  or  subor- 
dinate causes,  while  light,  sound,  and  so  forth, 
are  principal  causes :  which  two  act  together  as 
one,  or  as  active  and  passive.  He  who  investi- 
gates things  more  profoundly  may  know  that 
man  as  to  all  things  in  general  and  in  particular, 
is  an  organ  of  life,  and  that  what  produces  sense 
and  perception  flows  in  ah  extra,  and  that  it  is 
Life  itself  (or  God)  which  makes  man  thus  feel 
and  perceive  as  from  himself,  or  by  his  own 
power.  Another  ground  of  the  fallacious  ap- 
pearance in  question,  is,  that  the  Divine  Love  is 
of  such  a  nature  that  it  would  wilHngly  make 
over  to  man  what  is  its  own ;  while  still  teach- 
ing him  however  that  it  is  not  from  himself, 
since  otherwise  he  could  not  be  reformed."  ^ 

"  The  Divine  Love  and  Wisdom  can  do  no 
otherwise  than  be  and  exist  in  others  cre- 
ATED FROM  ITSELF.  The  inmost  life  of  love  is, 
on  the  one  hand,  not  to  love  itself  but  others, 
and  to  be  conjoined  with  them  in  love;  and  on 
the  other  hand  to  be  beloved  by  others,  because 
conjunction  demands  reciprocity.  The  essence 
of  all  love,  in  fact  its  very  life,  its  agreeableness, 

1  Essay  upon  the  Athanasian  Creed,  25,  26. 


1 1 2        Swedenborg's  Do^rine  of  Nature. 

its  pleasantness,  its  deliciousness,  its  sweetness,  its 
beatitude,  its  auspiciousness,  its  felicity,  consists 
in  conjunction.  Love  consists  in  this,  that  we 
would  make  over  what  is  our  own  to  another,  and 
feel  his  pleasure  as  our  own.  Such  is  love.  But 
to  enjoy  our  own  j)leasure  in  another,  and  not  his 
pleasure  in  ourselves,  is  not  love  ;  for  this  is  to 
love  one's  self,  and  not  one's  neighbor,  which 
two  loves  are  diametrically  opposite.  —  Hence 
it  is  evident  that  the  Divine  Love  can  do  no 
otherwise  than  be  and  exist  in  others  whom  it 
loves  and  by  whom  it  is  loved  ;  for  if  this  is 
true  of  all  finite  love,  it  must  be  infinitely  true 
of  Love  itself  With  respect  to  God,  it  is  im- 
possible that  He  should  love,  or  be  loved,  by 
other  beings  in  whom  anything  of  infinite,  or 
of  the  essence  and  life  of  Love-in-itself  that  is, 
anything  of  Divine,  exists;  because  in  that  case 
he  would  not  be  beloved  by  others,  but  by  Him- 
self; for  the  infinite  or  Divine  is  one.  If  this 
existed  in  others  than  God,  it  would  be  God 
there ;  and  God  consequently  in  place  of  being 
Love,  would  be  self-love ;  whereof  not  one 
aspiration  is  possible  to  Him,  for  it  is  totally 
opposed  to  the  Divine  essence.  God's  Love 
accordingly  must  be  addressed  to  those  in  whom 
nothing  of  Divinity  exists."  ^ 

Now  these  forms  are  moulded  exclusively  by 
Nature.  Nature  is  that  preliminary  realm  of 
FORMATION  upon  which  the  actuality  of  creation 
is  suspended.  It  is  the  hand  of  God's  power, 
by  means  of  which  His  perfect  Love  and  Wisdom 

1  Divine  Love  and  Wisdom,  46-49.  , 


Swedenborg's  Do^rine  of  Nature.        1 1 3 

become  eternally  communicable  and  communica- 
tive. The  order  of  nature  accordingly  is  only  a 
visible  picture  of  interior  spiritual  realities,  or 
what  is  the  same  thing  of  the  growth  of  the 
human  mind,  of  its  gradual  formation  out  of  its 
intrinsic  ignorance  and  impotence  into  true 
knowledge  and  power,  into  such  form  in  short 
as  will  permanently  befit  the  Divine  influx  and 
indwelling.  The  life  of  Nature  is  a  struggle 
upwards  from  the  most  wide-weltering  commu- 
nity or  chaos  (exemplified  in  mineral  existence) 
to  the  most  pronounced  and  concentrated  indi- 
viduality, (exemplified  in  moral  existence).  Na- 
ture thus  culminates  in  man  because  the  human 
form  which  is  distinctively  moral,  alone  suffices 
to  afford  that  perfect  natural  mould  or  matrix  by 
means  of  which  the  Divine  Love  evolves  the 
spiritual  creation. 

If  hereupon  the  inquirer  demand  of  Sweden- 
borg  further,  how  it  is  that  nature  becomes  sepa- 
rable in  this  state  of  things  from  spirit,  or  how 
the  mould  is  kept  from  identifying  itself  with 
the  thing  moulded,  his  answer  is  prompt,  name- 
ly :  that  the  law  of  the  mould  obviously  is,  that 
it  be  no  direct  but  only  an  inverse  measure  of  the 
thing  inoulded :  in  other  words,  that  nature  con- 
ne^s  with  spirit  not  by  continuity  but  by  correspon- 
dence. Thus  the  foundation  of  the  house  upon 
which  its  superstructure  is  moulded,  stretches 
away  downward  to  Hades,  while  the  superstruc- 
ture itself  mounts  upward  to  heaven.  Without 
this  fundamental  geometry  of  high  and  low, 
there  would  be  no  discrimination  of  base  from 

8 


1 14        Swedenborg's  DoBrine  of  Nature. 

building,  consequently  no  architecture  or  order, 
but  only  a  most  odious  chaos  or  confusion,  leav- 
ing us  finally  to  burrow  holes  in  the  ground  for 
houses.  Precisely  so,  if  moral  existence  were 
not  an  inverted  form  of  spiritual  existence, 
rather  than  a  direct  or  continuous  one:  that  is 
to  say,  if  it  did  not  bring  forth  all  the  creature's 
native  imbecility,  and  so  charaBerize  him  to  his 
own  consciousness :  it  could  afford  no  basis  of 
identity  between  him  and  his  fellow  man,  nor 
consequently  any  ground  of  discrimination  be- 
tween man  and  God,  between  creature  and  cre- 
ator, but  the  two  would  run  together  in  such 
inextricable  confusion  that  creation  would  be 
impossible.  Thus  the  destiny  of  all  natural 
existence,  and  especially  of  the  highest  form  of 
that  existence  which  is  the  human  or  moral 
form,  is  to  merge  in  spiritual ;  to  serve  merely 
as  the  mother  earth  of  that  translucent  heaven  : 
and  we  must  not  fail  therefore  to  hold  the  two 
things  as  invariably  inversely  related,  under  pen- 
alty of  forfeiting  all  understanding  of  God's 
order  in  creation. 

One  word  more.  It  is  obvious  that  the  per- 
//  faction  of  the  thing  moulded  will  depend  upon 
the  integrity  of  the  mould :  the  stability  of  the 
house  and  its  salubrity  upon  the  strength  and 
dryness  of  the  foundation.  Accordingly  our 
spiritual  life  will  be  clear  and  lustrous,  just  in 
proportion  as  the  natural  experience  upon  which 
it  proceeds  is  fully  wrought  out  to  its  last  gasp 
of  possibility ;  is  left  in  short  to  itself,  to  its  own 
legitimate  issues.      In  other  words,  spiritual  life 


Its  total  Subordination   to  Spirit.         115 

will  become  realized  by  us  just  in  proportion  to 
the  intensity  of  our  previous  moral  life  :  /.  e.  to 
the  degree  in  which  its  intrinsic  lusts  of  pride 
and  covetousness  have  become  developed  to  our 
own  consciousness,  and  we  ourselves  have  been 
led  by  these  discoveries  to  renounce  all  hope  in 
ourselves,  and  confide  for  life  wholly  in  God. 
In  this  case  our  native  arrogance  and  contempt 
of  others,  our  love  of  rule  and  overbearing  man- 
ners generally,  in  short  all  our  natural  obduracy 
and  unloveliness,  become  manifest  to  our  own 
perception ;  and  while  we  seem  to  our  own 
shallowjudgment  accordingly  to  be  utterly  God- 
forsaken, He  is  all  the  while  inwardly  shaping 
and  building  us  up  in  the  image  of  His  immor- 
tal beauty. 

This  in  substance  is  Swedenborg's  doctrine 
of  Nature,  or  his  view  of  the  essential  subordi- 
nation it  bears  to  God's  spiritual  ends  in  crea- 
tion ;  all  its  lower  realms  being  involved  in  the 
constitution  of  man,  or  serving  as  the  pedestal 
of  moral  existence,  in  order  that  that  existence 
again  may  serve  in  its  turn  as  a  basis  of  spirit- 
ual life,  life  which,  being  Divine,  cannot  be  cre- 
ated but  only  communicated.  Natural  existence 
is  not  spiritual  existence,  but  only  a  basis  of  it ; 
just  as  the  husk  of  grain  or  fruit  is  a  basis  for  its 
own  interior  contents,  protecting  them  while 
they  grow  and  ripen.  It  is  nothing  else  than  a 
basis,  because  in  proportion  as  a  man's  spiritual 
force  augments,  his  natural  force  abates ;  just  as 
the  shell  of  a  nut  decays  as  the  kernel  ripens. 
Moral  existence  is  often  thoughtlessly  confound- 


1 1 6  Discrimination  of  Moral 

ed  with  spiritual,  because  it  is  so  dominant  a  form 
of  natural  existence  as  to  seem  something  apart 
from  it.  It  is  in  fact  only  a  natural  form  or  ap- 
pearance of  spiritual  existence :  such  an  appear- 
ance as  spiritual  existence  puts  on  to  the  purely 
sensuous  intelligence ;  while  in  substance  it  is 
strictly  natural,  being  nothing  more  nor  less  than 
the  distinctive  badge  of  human  nature ;  every 
man  being  constituted  a  man,  that  is,  a  partaker 
of  his  nature,  exclusively  by  his  morality. 

Perhaps  the  best  definition  we  can  make  of 
the  difference  between  spiritual  and  moral  life, 
will  be  to  say,  that  the  former  is  spontaneous,  or 
expresses  itself  from  within  outwardly,  being 
energized  by  the  marriage  of  good  in  the  heart 
with  truth  in  the  understanding :  while  the  lat- 
ter is  purely  voluntary,  or  expresses  itself  from 
without  inwardly,  being  energized  by  the  su- 
premacy of  truth  in  the  understanding  to  good 
in  the  heart.  The  spiritual  subject  accordingly 
is  perfectly  free,  or  incapable  of  coercing  him- 
self ;  for  when  the  heart  prompts  the  under- 
standing, and  the  understanding  seconds  the 
heart,  the  hand  acts  as  it  were  unconsciously, 
or  without  effort.  The  moral  subject  on  the 
other  hand,  though  he  claims  a  felt  or  q^uasi  free- 
dom, has  not  the  least  spiritual  or  real  freedom, 
being  perpetually  required  to  force  himself  away 
from  evil  towards  good  :  ^so  that  however  good 
a  matrix  or  womb  of  spiritual  life  his  moral 
consciousness  may  prove  to  him,  it  ought  never 
for  a  moment  to  be  confounded  with  it.  What 
is  common  to  both  forms  of  life,  and  what  there- 


from  Spiritual  Life.  1 1 7 

fore  renders  the  one  strictly  serviceable  to  the 
other,  is,  that  they  both  imply  the  intensest  pri- 
vacy, the  intensest  feeling  of  selfhood  or  indi- 
viduality in  the  subject.  And  what  eternally 
distinguishes  them  is,  that  the  moral  subject, 
though  he  feel  himself  to  be  perfectly  free  or 
seli-possessed  is  yet  not  truly  so ;  his  apparent 
freedom  or  self-possession  being  wholly  contin- 
gent upon  an  exact  balance  or  equilibrium  of 
good  and  evil  Divinely  enforced  and  maintained 
in  his  nature:  so  that  if  this  equilibrium  should 
become  deranged  by  the  rise  of  any  bad  habit 
on  his  part,  his  apparent  freedom  or  self-suffi- 
ciency would  merge  in  the  grossest  slavery  to 
natural  appetite  and  passion. 

But  I  fear  that  I  am  entering  too  suddenly 
for  the  reader's  convenience  into  the  heart  of 
things  ;  and  that  his  wishes  would  be  best  pro- 
moted by  a  more  gradual  movement.  Let  me 
then  suppose  the  reader  opening  Swedenborg's 
books  for  the  first  time  in  total  ignorance  of  what 
he  is  to  find  there;  and  then  proceed  to  illustrate 
the  probable  influence  they  will  exert  upon  his 
intelligence,  by  the  effect  they  have  produced 
upon  my  own. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

What  first  arrests  one's  attention  even  in  cur- 
sorily surveying  Swedenborg's  writings,  is  the 
necessity  we  are  under,  in  order  to  attain  to  any 
accurate  knowledge  of  spiritual  order,  of  recti- 
fying certain  rational  prejudices  we  are  wont  to 
cherish  in  regard  to  Divine  things  ;  just  as  we 
are  bound,  before  attaining  to  a  systematic  view 
of  cosmical  order,  to  rectify  certain  sensuous  prej- 
udices we  are  under  with  respect  to  Nature.  If 
for  example  we  go  on  to  believe  as  our  senses 
teach  us,  that  the  earth  is  the  centre  of  planetary 
motion,  the  planetary  orbs  being  all  circumfer- 
ential to  it,  we  shall  never  be  able  satisfactorily 
to  systematize  our  knowledge,  nor  consequently 
to  render  it  fruitful  in  practical  application.  So 
if  we  accept  the  testimony  of  the  scientific  rea- 
son in  regard  to  God  and  his  relation  to  us  as 
absolute,  we  shall  find  our  philosophic  progress 
no  less  hindered  than  our  scientific  progress  is 
hindered  in  the  former  case.  For  science  con- 
trolled by  sense,  or  what  is  equivalent,  unenlight- 
ened by  Revelation,  affirms  the  absoluteness  of 
morahty,  bhnks  out  of  sight  the  total  and  rigid 
subserviency  it  is  under  to  God's  spiritual  ends 
in  creation  ;  and  hence  arrays  the  creature  in  such 
absurd  relations  of  independency  towards  God 


spiritual  incompetency  of  Reason.        119 

as  practically  to  make  creation  unintelligible, 
and  render  all  our  heartiest  beliefs  on  the  subject 
fallacious  and  nugatory.  Sense,  which  is  indi- 
vidual observation,  so  long  as  it  is  unchecked 
by  science,  makes  the  sun  revolve  about  the 
earth.  And  science  which  is  associated  obser- 
vation, so  long  as  it  is  uncorrected  by  Revela- 
tion, makes  God  revolve  about  man,  the  creator 
about  the  creature,  the  infinite  about  the  finite, 
turning  Him  into  a  mere  rewarder  of  our  merit 
towards  Him  and  a  punisher  of  our  demerit.  The 
natural  reason  suspends  our  spiritual  destiny 
upon  the  measure  of  our  moral  righteousness ; 
upon  the  degree  in  which  we  are  personally 
differenced  from  other  men  before  God.  It  al- 
lows us  hope  towards  God  in  so  far  as  we  are 
entitled  to  the  love  and  admiration  of  our  fel- 
lows, and  shuts  us  up  to  despair  in  so  far  as 
we  have  forfeited  these  qualifications.  In  very 
truth  however  or  according  to  Revelation,  our 
spiritual  character  becomes  lowered  just  as  our 
moral  righteousness,  or  favorable  estimation  by 
our  fellow-men,  becomes  prized  by  us.  Or  what 
is  the  same  thing,  our  true  hope  towards  God  is 
the  measure  of  our  despair  in  ourselves;  the  gos- 
pel invariably  making  salvation  at  God's  hands 
the  prerogative,  not  of  high-flying  saints  by  any 
means,  but  of  low-lying  sinners  exclusively. 

This  then  is  what  we  find  in  Swedenborg  at 
the  very  start,  the  downright  and  complete  re- 
versal of  all  our  ordinary  prejudices  in  regard  to 
God's  spiritual  administration.  Natural  reason 
conceives   of  God   as  an  omnipotent   conjuror 


120  Nature   involved  in 

or  magician,  who  is  able  at  will  to  summon  all 
existence,  personal  and  real,  moral  and  physical, 
out  of  sheer  nothing.  And  it  represents  crea- 
tion consequently  not  as  a  strictly  inevitable  pro- 
cession of  the  Divine  love  and  wisdom  into  some 
grandly  unitary  and  responsive  form  of  conscious- 
ness, but  as  a  transient  act  of  God's  caprice,  where- 
by He  gives  being  to  things  which  are  uncon- 
scious, non-existent,  nothing.  We  have  all  of 
us  an  undefined  instinctive  notion  that  God  is 
a  being  not  of  the  most  faultlessly  human  pro- 
portions, but  of  this  strictly  magical  faculty : 
and  scarcely  one  in  a  thousand  of  us  doubts, 
that  creation  was  a  mere  brute  irrational  pro- 
cedure on  His  part,  a  stupendous  freak  of  rest- 
lessness in  fact  or  miraculous  harlequinade,  as 
essentially  appreciable  to  the  clod  as  to  the 
seraph. 

Now  Swedenborg's  books  replace  this  vul- 
gar conception  of  the  subject  by  a  spotless 
doctrine  of  Nature,  calculated  to  release  the 
mind  from  the  bondage  of  superstition  and 
build  it  up  in  pure  spontaneous  adoration  of 
the  Highest.  He  denies  that  God  is  the  least 
bit  of  a  conjuror,  or  possesses  any  magical  power, 
that  is,  any  power  of  instantaneous  creation, 
any  power  of  making  something  out  of  nothing. 
On  the  contrary  he  affirms  and  demonstrates  that 
all  true  creatureship  consists  exclusively  in  a 
certain  faculty  of  reaction  or  reciprocation  which 
the  creature  possesses  towards  the  creator;  which 
faculty  of  course  would  be  inconceivable  in  any 
but   a   spiritual    form   of  existence.       In    other 


Tke  Spiritual  Creation.  121 

words  the  necessary  marks  of  God's  creature  are 
freedom  and  rationality ;  and  as  these  character- ' 
istics  qualify  man  alone,  so  man  alone  is  God's 
true  creature,  all  other  forms  of  existence  being 
involved  in  his  form,  and  owing  whatsoever  they 
are  and  enjoy  to  its  commanding  universality. 
Thus  nature  derives  its  total  significance  from 
the  human  form,  being  in  fact  a  strict  and  per- 
fect correspondence  of  all  things  in  man ;  being 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  spiritual  or  invis- 
ible contents  of  the  human  mind  made  phenome- 
nal to  itself,  rendered  fixed  and  visible,  and  hence 
scientifically  appreciable.  In  short  man  is  the 
secret  harmony  or  unity  of  Nature,  so  that  any 
attempt  to  comprehend  natural  things  indepen- 
dently of  spiritual,  or  formulate  a  doctrine  of 
Nature  apart  from  the  uses  it  subserves  to  the 
evolution  of  man's  spiritual  destiny,  is  to  the 
last  degree  childish.  The  simple  rectification 
of  established  prejudice  which  Swedenborg's 
books  operate  on  this  point  alone,  sheds  a  flood 
of  light  on  our  mental  progress,  and  makes 
in  fact  the  difference  between  day  and  night 
on  every  problem  connected  with  man's  origin 
and  destiny. 

At  all  events  my  own  intellect  was  a  prey  to 
habitual  and  extreme  disquiet  until  I  had  learned 
it.  I  was  born  in  the  bosom  of  orthodoxy,  and 
never  knew  a  misgiving  as  to  the  perfect  truth 
of  its  dogmas,  until  I  had  begun  to  prepare  my- 
self for  its  professional  ministry.  Then  I  could 
no  longer  evade  the  enormous  difficulties  which 
inhered  in  its  philosophy.     I  never  felt  a  doubt 


122  Swedenborg  makes  Nature 

as  to  the  grand  fundamental  truths  it  upheld, 
such  as  the  creation,  the  fall,  the  redemption 
and  the  reconciliation  of  man.  But  I  felt  cer- 
tain that  it  maintained  these  verities  in  a  most 
absurd  and  imbecile  way,  which  was  sure  to  dis- 
gust the  unbribed  understanding  of  men,  and 
expose  the  benignant  truths  themselves  to  neg- 
lect if  not  discredit.  But  of  course  I  felt  my- 
self every  way  incompetent  to  stem  the  evil. 
I  was  sure  that  while  orthodoxy  had  somehow 
succeeded  to  a  celestial  inheritance,  it  was  yet  a 
most  unrighteous  steward  of  that  inheritance ; 
but  how  to  dispossess  it  God  alone  knew.  It 
was  at  this  crisis  of  my  intellectual  fortunes  that 
I  encountered  Swedenborg,  whom  I  had  been 
taught  by  my  mistaken  guides  in  theology  to 
regard  as  half-fanatic  and  half-fool,  and  found 
in  his  doctrine  of  nature  a  complete  extrication 
from  my  trouble. 

I  was  forcibly  struck  in  my  first  cursory 
glances  at  these  remarkable  writings  with  the 
statement  which  everywhere  pervades  them,  that 
the  natural  realm  of  creation,  and  not,  as  I  had 
always  supposed,  its  spiritual  realm,  was  the  true 
seat  of  God's  creative  poiver.  In  common  with 
all  theologians  and  philosophers,  I  had  always 
supposed  that  the  creative  operation  had  refer- 
ence to  us  primarily  as  individuals,  and  only 
secondarily  as  a  race ;  or  regarded  us  first  mor- 
ally and  afterwards  socially:  and  hence  inas- 
much as  I  perceived  in  myself  great  moral 
infirmity,  that  is,  a  ready  proclivity  under  temp- 
tation to   lying  theft  adultery  and  murder,  my 


The  Hand  of  God's  Power.  123 

religious  life  had  always  been  one  of  Intense  an- 
guish. Before  making  Swedenborg's  acquaint- 
ance as  I  have  already  said,  this  excessive  mental 
disquiet  had  led  me  to  a  deep  though  tacit  dis- 
trust of  the  orthodox  interpretation  of  the  Chris- 
tian truth.  I  felt  indeed  a  profound  though  for 
the  most  part  helpless  conviction  that  God  would 
be  one  day  discovered  on  the  sinner's  side  ;  and 
that  the  experiences  of  remorse  and  horror  I 
was  undergoing  were  diabolic  infestations,  rather 
than  any  legitimate  operation  of  the  Divine 
spirit  within  me.  But  however  much  my  heart 
revolted,  my  intellect  writhed  ineffectually  under 
the  iron  domination  of  the  letter  so  dishonestly 
enforced  and  riveted  by  the  church ;  and  I 
would  at  any  moment  have  given  my  life  for 
the  ability  to  spiritualize,  /.  e.  give  a  universal 
meaning  to,  statements  so  palpably  limitary  of  the 
Divine  supremacy  as  I  found  on  the  face  of 
Revelation.-^  It  was  not  till  I  had  thoroughly 
explored  these  extraordinary  books,  and  pene- 
trated to  some  extent  the  mines  of  condensed 
wisdom  they  embody,  that  I  could  succeed  in 
shaking  off  my  hereditary  shackles  to  orthodoxy, 
or  encounter  without  pale  terror  the  menace  of 
disaster  and  opprobrium  with  which,  armed  and 
inspired  by  the  deepest  hell,  it  strives  every- 
where to  harass  and  keep  in  bondage  the  human 
soul. 

1  Swedenborg     repeats    with  purity,    tends    ever    away    from 

what  must  seem  sickening  iter-  person  to  the  things  signified   by 

ation  to  those  who  are  inditferent  person  :  thus  to  uni'versaltze  it- 

to  the  truth  involved,  that  spirit-  self, 
ual  thought,  in  proportion  to  its 


124        Moral  Righteousness  incompatible 

The  potent  word  of  disenchantment  for  my 
intelligence,  as  I  have  already  said,  was  this, 
namely  :  that  God  is  directly  related  to  us 
through  our  nature  or  what  we  have  in  common 
one  with  another ;  and  therefore  inversely  related 
to  us  through  our  moral  parts  or  what  we  have 
in  conscious  distinction  one  from  another.  That 
is  to  say  our  natural  individuality  is  a  totally 
fallacious  measure  of  Divine  truth,  until  it  has 
undergone  the  modification  of  the  public  or  so- 
cial consciousness,  and  become  converted  thereby 
into  a  strictly  spontaneous  and  productive  force. 
I  had  always  viewed  the  case  strictly  e.  converso. 
I  had  indeed  long  had  an  instinflive  feeling  of 
the  truth  in  the  letter  of  the  gospels,  where  we 
see  Christ  invariably  flogging  the  pretension  of 
a  moral  or  personal  righteousness  in  man  out  of 
his  sight ;  and  preferring  any  dilapidated  harlot 
in  whose  heart  a  temper  of  unaffected  humility 
has  been  Divinely  quickened,  to  an  unblemished 
doctor  of  divinity  who  yet  lacks  that  precious 
leaven.  But  I  had  never  caught  a  glimpse  of 
its  majestic  philosophic  import.  Doubtless  the 
reason  was,  that  regarding  Revelation  itself  as  I 
did  with  the  pinched  and  lethargic  comprehension 
authorized  by  the  church,  I  had  never  seen  any- 
thing in  it  but  a  literal  story  about  the  birth  life 
death  resurrection  and  ascension  of  Jesus  Christ, 
which  being  intended  to  commend  him  person- 
ally to  our  superstitious  regard  under  very  dire 
penalties,  by  that  very  fact  of  course  emptied 
itself  of  all  philosophic  or  properly  human  and 
spiritual  significance.       I   say   "  of  course,"  be- 


with  Spiritual  Innocence.  125 

cause  truth  admits  no  spiritual  sanction  to  our 
intelligence  but  the  good  it  reveals  to  the  heart; 
and  if  accordingly  it  disclaim  this  sanction,  and 
seek  to  get  itself  honored  by  an  appeal  to  our 
hopes  and  fears,  it  at  once  forfeits  its  aspect  of 
inspired  scripture,  and  sinks  into  the  dimensions 
of  ordinary  literature. 

I  do  not  hesitate  then  to  avow  my  own  obli- 
gations to  Swedenborg  for  the  first  clear  intel- 
lectual insight  I  got  into  the  gospel;  and  for 
the  thoroughly  philosophic  justification  which 
thence  befell  my  long  cherished  and  profound 
experimental  conviction  of  the  essentially  loath- 
some character  of  our  moral  righteousness.  He 
showed  me  for  the  first  time  the  inevitably  fal- 
lacious nature  of  the  moral  instinct,  by  demon- 
strating the  altogether  subordinate  and  mediato- 
rial part  it  plays  in  the  evolution  of  our  spiritual 
destiny.  I  had  never  for  a  moment  intelle^ually 
realized  my  moral  consciousness  to  be  that  mere 
steward  or  servant  of  the  Divine  inheritance  in 
our  nature,  which  Swedenborg  showed  it  to  be. 
On  the  contrary  with  the  intellect,  and  in  spite 
of  the  heart's  misgiving,  I  had  always  quietly 
allowed  it  to  be  the  undeniable  lord  of  the  in- 
heritance, and  beheld  it  accordingly  whipping  the 
men-servants  and  the  maid-servants  at  its  pleas- 
ure, without  a  suspicion.  Far  from  supposing 
my  natural  selfhood  or  proprium  to  constitute 
a  strictly  negative  token,  an  essentially  inverse 
attestation,  of  God's  spiritual  and  infinite  pres- 
ence in  our  nature,  I  habitually  viewed  it  as  the 
church  taught  me  to  view  it,  that  is,  as  the  only 


126  The  Lauj  is  intended 

direct  and  positive  manifestation  of  His  power: 
and  my  religious  life  accordingly  became  one  of 
incessant  conflict  and  perturbation. 

How  could  it  have  been  otherwise  ?  Having 
as  I  supposed  a  purely  moral  slatus  by  creation 
—  never  dreaming  that  my  selfhood  possessed 
only  a  formal  or  subjective  vahdity —  I  attribu- 
ted to  myself  an  objective  or  substantial  reality 
in  God's  sight,  and  of  course  sought  to  attract 
His  approbation  to  me,  by  the  unswerving  pur- 
suit of  moral  excellence,  by  studiously  cultivat- 
ing every  method  of  personal  purity.  It  was 
all  in  vain.  The  more  I  strove  to  indue  myself 
in  actual  righteousness,  the  wider  gaped  the  jaws 
of  hell  within  me;  the  fouler  grew  its  fetid 
breath,  A  conviction  of  inward  defilement  so 
sheer  took  possession  of  me,  that  death  seemed 
better  than  life.  I  soon  found  my  conscience, 
once  launched  in  this  insane  career,  acquiring  so 
infernal  an  edge,  that  I  could  no  longer  indulge 
myself  in  the  most  momentary  deviation  from 
an  absurd  and  pedantic  literal  rectitude  —  could 
not  for  example  bestow  a  sulky  glance  upon  my 
wife,  a  cross  word  upon  my  child,  or  a  petulant 
objurgation  on  my  cook  —  without  tumbling 
into  an  instant  inward  frenzy  of  alarm,  lest  I 
should  thereby  have  provoked  God's  personal 
malignity  to  me.  There  is  indeed  no  way  of 
avoiding  spiritual  results  so  belittling,  but  by 
ceasing  to  regard  morality  as  a  direct,  and  look- 
ing upon  it  as  an  inverse,  image  of  God's  true 
life  in  us.  If  my  moral  consciousness  constitute 
the  true  and  eternal  bond  of  intercourse  between 


to  minister  Death.  127 

me  and  God  ;  that  is  to  say,  if  He  attribute  to 
me  all  the  good  and  evil  which  I  in  my  insane 
pride  attribute  to  myself:  then  it  will  be  impos- 
sible for  me  to  avoid  to  all  eternity,  either  a 
most  conceited  and  disgusting  conviction  of  His 
personal  complacency  in  me;  or  else  a  shudder- 
ing apprehension  of  His  personal  ill-will.  If  I 
have  a  naturally  complacent  temper  my  religious 
life  will  reflect  it,  and  array  me  spiritually  in  all 
manner  of  nauseous  Pharisaism  and  flunkeyism. 
If  I  have  what  is  called  a  "  morbid "  natural 
temperament,  on  the  other  hand,  leading  me  to 
self-distrust  and  self-depreciation,  my  religious 
life  will  deepen  these  things  into  despair,  by 
making  my  self-condemnation  confess  itself  a 
feeble  reflection  of  God's  profounder  vindictive- 
ness. 

Here  however  was  a  truth  which  traversed 
my  sensuous  superstition  from  top  to  bottom, 
showing  me  that  inasmuch  as  my  moral  con- 
sciousness itself  was  but  an  inverse,  never  a 
direct,  exponent  of  spiritual  truth  or  substance, 
so  a  fortiori  every  derivation  from  that  conscious- 
ness claimed  a  precisely  similar  interpretation  : 
thus  that  my  self-righteousness  and  my  self-con- 
demnation attested  in  every  case  a  strictly  in- 
verse never  a  direct  judgment  of  the  Divine 
mind  towards  me  ;  the  former  being  an  invari- 
able evidence  of  His  inward  or  spiritual  remote- 
ness from  me  ;  the  latter  of  His  inward  or  spir- 
itual nearness.  Fed  only  by  sense  (symbolically 
the  serpent^  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  unenlight- 
ened by  Revelation,  my  religious  conscience  had 


128  Moral  Force  Chara^erizcs  us 

always  reported  me  as  having  life  in  myself,  /.  e. 
as  being  my  own  substance  no  less  than  my  own 
form.  And,  consequently,  whenever  the  great 
pent-up  fires  of  natural  appetite  and  passion 
sought  vent  in  any  volcanic  devastating  floods 
through  the  petty  mountain-tops  of  my  moral- 
ity, through  the  chinks  and  crevices  of  my  pig- 
my personality,  I,  having  no  discernment  of  my 
proper  insignificance  in  the  premises,  /.  e.  of  the 
utter  disproportion  between  my  personal  dimen- 
sions and  the  great  underlying  breadth  of  human 
nature  itself;  incontinently  appropriated  its  stu- 
pendous contents  to  myself^  and  like  a  sublimer 
Jack  Horner  stupidly  marvelled  to  think,  how 
odious  a  person  I  must  all  the  while  be  becom- 
ing to  the  Divine  mind.  But  here  at  last  came 
a  fragrant  breath  of  heaven,  came  a  fragrant 
breath  indeed  from  above  the  heaven  of  heavens, 
blowing  away  this  "damned  dust"  of  sense  from 
my  soul,  and  teaching  me  to  see  that  no  possi- 
bility existed  of  any  one  being  either  personally 
good  or  personally  evil  to  the  Divine  mind; 
since  personality  itself  was  a  purely  subjective 
or  formal  experience  of  man,  and  had  not  the 
least  spiritual  title  therefore  to  determine  its  own 
objective  or  substantial  contents. 

The  basis  of  Natural  Religion  is  this  pride 
of  morality ;  this  habitually  fallacious  estimate 
we  put  upon  the  dignity  of  our  natural  individ- 
uality. Born  in  complete  ignorance  of  spiritual 
things,  having  no  conception  of  the  essential 
servility  our  moral  experience  is  under  to  the 
needs   of  a   superior  spiritual   life,   we   suppose 

'^'  ^     ^^ 

( ■-"■ 


in  the  Infancy  of  our  Development.       1 29 

that  it  is  a  point  of  really  Divine  order  that  man 
should  always  be  invested  with  the  control  of 
his  nature,  with  the  responsibility  of  his  natural 
appetites  and  passions  :  the  Divine  complacency 
in  him  being  measured  by  the  degree  in  which 
he  exercises  such  control.  The  truth  however 
is  that  our  moral  force  is  called  for  only  during  1 
the  infancy  of  human  development,  or  while  the  i 
social  sentiment  is  still  so  immature  in  our  bo- 
soms, that  no  scientific  countenance  is  afforded 
to  the  suggestion  of  God's  vital  presence  in  our 
nature.  So  long  of  course  as  God  remains  a 
wholly  unrecognized  glory  in  humanity :  or 
while  the  still  undeveloped  forms  of  our  rich 
spontaneous  activity  hide,  instead  of  plainly  re- 
vealing. His  infinite  spiritual  indwelling  in  our 
very  nature  itself,  and  moreover  in  the  lowest 
things  of  that  nature  preeminently;  we  of  course  | 
exaggerate  the  worth  of  the  moral  or  voluntary 
life;  and  suppose  that  the  interests  of  human 
individuality  are  indissolubly  pledged  to  its  per- 
manence. / 

No  judgment  can  be  more  fallacious.  Human 
individuality  is  then  at  its  lowest  ebb  :  in  other 
words  our  experience  of  evil  is  then  most  abun- 
dant and  overpowering :  when  the  moral  force 
in  us  is  supreme ;  or  has  not  as  yet  been  chas- 
tened refined  and  glorified  by  the  progress  of 
human  society  equality  or  fellowship,  into  spon- 
taneous or  aesthetic  form.  But  it  is  not  in  man  y' 
that  walketh  to  dire^  his  steps ;  and  we  accord- 
ingly during  all  our  philosophic  nonage  take  for 

granted  the  priniary_£OStulate  of  consciousness, 
9 


loo  By  the  Law  alone 

which  is,  that  we  are  our  own  vital  substance  as 
well  as  derivative  form  ;  our  own  inward  reality 
as  well  as  outward  phenomenality.  Conscious- 
ness reports  the  self  hood  as  a  finality,  as  given 
to  us  for  its  own  sake  or  absolutely,  and  by  no 
means  in  the  interests  of  a  superior  Divine  end. 
The  symbolic  voice  of  God  in  Eden  said  to 
Adam :  "  In  the  day  you  eat  of  the  tree  of  the 
knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  you  shall  surely  die:" 
which,  being  philosophically  interpreted,  means 
that  so  far  as  a  man  is  satisfied  with  himself, 

AS  MORALLY  CONSTITUTED  TO  HIS  OWN  INTELLI- 
GENCE, he  nourishes  a  sentiment  of  independence 
«  towards  God,  and  disunion  towards  his  neigh- 
bor ;  and  to  that  extent  immerses  himself  in 
pride,  which  is  spiritual  death.  On  the  other 
hand  the  symbolic  voice  of  the  serpent  (which 
means  the  lowest  of  our  mental  forms ;  the  im- 
agination conversant  with  the  mere  appearances 
of  things,  and  ignorant  of  their  spiritual  import ; 
the  poetic  faculty,  in  short :)  pipes  an  encourag- 
ing tune.  It  says:  '"The  tree  is  good  for  food,  pleas- 
ant to  the  eyes,  and  much  to  be  desired  to  make  one 
wise:  and  if  you  will  only  eat  heartily  of  it  you 
will  become  like  God,  blowing  good  and  evil" 
That  is  to  say,  dropping  metaphor  and  speaking 
truth,  the  sensuous  imagination  in  us,  which 
means  our  faculty  of  mistaking  appearance  for 
reality,  affirms  the  absolute  or  independent  char- 
acter of  the  selfhood  as  a  truth  of  reason;  in- 
sists so  speciously  upon  its  intrinsic  validity  or 
essential  insubordination  to  all  ulterior  spiritual 
issues,  as  to  persuade  us  that  we  have  only  got 


IS  the  Knowledge  of  Sin.  131 

diligently  to  cultivate  and  cherish  it,  in  order  to 
come  into  the  image  of  God's  perfection  :  thus  on 
the  one  hand  degrading  God  from  an  infinite  or 
spiritual  and  therefore  purely  creative  relation 
towards  us,  to  a  finite  or  moral  and  therefore  | 
purely  reactive  agency  :  while  on  the  other  hand 
blinding  us  to  the  essential  subserviency  our 
moral  development  is  under,  to  the  needs  of  a 
signal  Divine  redemption  which  is  yet  to  illus- 
trate our  nature,  and  lift  it  into  immortal  con- 
junction with  God. 

Now  religion  is  no  doubt  a  ([uasi  consecration 
of  these  sensuous  instincts  of  our  intelligence. 
It  is  an  apparent  Divine  authentication  of  this 
madness  of  the  natural  heart,  which  prompts  us 
to  expect  God's  infinite  approbation  upon  our 
strictly  finite  and  differential  endowments.  But 
this  religious  consecration  of  the  moral  instinct 
takes  place  not  in  the  interests  of  that  instinct, 
but  only  in  those  of  our  eventual  living  and 
spiritual  emancipation  from  it.  God  does  in- 
deed formally  ratify  the  moral  consciousness  in 
us ;  but  then  it  is  by  imposing  upon  it  a  ritual 
and  figurative  drapery  of  sacrifice  and  lustration, 
which  inwardly  falsifies  its  pretension  and  reveals 
its  utter  spiritual  hollowness.  He  apparently 
sanctions  the  claim  we  put  forth  of  a  capacity 
of  personal  approximation  to  His  perfection ; 
/.  e.  allows  our  pride  of  selfhood  to  inflate  itself 
to  the  extent  of  expecting  and  soliciting  His 
personal  countenance  and  approbation.  But 
this  apparent  sanction  turns  out  a  very  real 
curse,   since    the  sincere  worshipper  no  sooner 


132         Delight  in  Ritual  Righteousness 

attempts  to  realize  the  legal  or  accredited  right- 
eousness, and  so  achieve  his  coveted  personal 
nearness  to  God,  than  he  finds  himself  subjected 
not  merely  to  a  permanent  priestly  mediation 
which  of  itself  falsifies  his  personal  aspiration, 
but  also  to  a  perpetual  discipline  of  cleansing 
and  oblation,  which  leaves  him  in  no  doubt  that 
death  and  not  life  is  the  righteous  meed  of  every 
attempt  to  compass  a  literal  or  actual  fulfilment 
of  God's  law,  and  so  secure  a  personal  title  to 
His  favor. 

The  letter  of  the  Divine  law  wears  a  very 
easy  and  seductive  aspect  to  the  carnal  under- 
standing; and  you  will  accordingly  find  it  true  as 
a  general  rule,  that  no  more  grovelling  swine 
exist,  figuratively  speaking,  than  those  which 
are  fattened  upon  the  spiritual  husks  that  go  to 
constitute  the  body  of  any  existing  ritual,  Chris- 
tian or  Pagan,  and  are  content  with  that  base 
nutriment.  But  to  spiritual  eyes,  that  is,  to  an 
^  affe^ionate  discernment,)  this  carnal  letter  of 
righteousness  covers  over  such  abysses  of  spirit- 
ual disease  disorder  and  death  in  the  satisfied 
votary,  as  to  announce  itself  on  its  very  face  a 
purely  prophetic  or  prospective  economy;  a  mere 
figure  for  the  time  then  being,  of  a  very  real 
because  spiritual  renovation  which  human  nature 
itself  is  creatively  bound  to  exhibit  at  the  Di- 
vine hands.  The  mere  ecclesiastic,  the  man 
who  is  satisfied  with  his  ritual  righteousness 
because  it  hides  his  spiritual  raggedness  from 
his  own  eyes,  or  keeps  him  on  the  best  possible 
terms  with  himself,  attributes  of  course  a  posi- 


Fatal  to  Spiritual  Discernment.  133 

_tive  sanctity,  a  direct  worth,  to  religion,  as  mor- 
ally uniting  God  and  the  worshipper.  The 
spiritual  man  on  the  other  hand  (the  man  who 
rejects  the  ritual  righteousness  for  the  same  rea- 
son which  leads  the  carnal  man  to  embrace  it, 
that  is,  because  it  conceals  his  spiritual  naked- 
ness :)  attributes  to  religion  a  purely  figurative 
sanctity,  a  purely  negative  validity,  which  is 
that  of  morally  disuniting  God  and  the  wor- 
shipper ;  so  shutting  up  the  latter's  hope  to  that 
Divine  PROMISE  of  a  spiritual  renewing  of  his 
natijire,  which  is  the  sole  legitimate  antidote  to 
the  despair  of  the  honest  religious  conscience, 
and  which  alone  is  worthy  therefore  of  any  rea- 
sonable being's  regard  or  confidence. 

Religion  then,  so  far  from  really  authenticat- 
ing the  moral  instinct  in  its  upward  soarings,  or 
vindicating  its  votary's  personal  claim  to  the  Di- 
vine consideration,  is  intent  upon  practically  ex- 
y  orcising  such  claim,  by  exposing  the  endless 
depths  of  spiritual  profligacy  which  are  involved 
in  it.  True  religion  has  no  force  spiritually  but 
to  dislodge  from  our  minds  the  conception  of  a 
literal  righteousness,  of  a  finite  sanctity,  among 
men,  such  as  may  distinguish  one  man  from  an- 
other in  the  Divine  sight ;  substituting  in  place 
of  it  the  recognition  of  a  Divinely  wrought  and 
therefore  spotless  innocence  in  our  very  nature 
itself;  based  upon  a  sentiment  of  the  frankest 
fellowship,  of  the  most  intimate  unity  and  equal- 
ity of  every  man  with  every  other  man.  If 
hereupon  any  one  be  disposed  to  ask  why,  in 
this  state  of  things,  God  accords  even  a  quasi 


134        O^'"  Spiritual  Creation  Contingent 

consecration,  even  a  temporary  indulgence,  to 
the  moral  instinct,  instead  of  utterly  obliterating 
it  from  sight :  the  answer  is,  that  He  does  so  for 
the  same  reason  that  prompts  the  architect  to 
excavate  a  foundatj_on  for  his  house  before  he 
piitO^c^ouse  uji ;  namely,  to  insure  its  perma- 
nence or  stability.  As  the  foundation  of  a 
house,  if  it  be  well  laid,  permits  and  subserves 
any  amount  of  development  in  the  superstruc- 
ture, so  our  moral  existence,  in  freely  promoting 
our  rational  evolution,  essentially  subserves  our 
eventual  spiritual  manhood.  For  the  moral  sen- 
timent in  furnishing  us  as  it  does  with  a  spiritual 
or  interior  development  so  exactly  inversive  of 
God's  own  spirit,  both  becomes  a  veracious  basis 
of  consciousness  for  us  to  all  eternity,  and  ipsofaFto 
presents  to  God  that  exact  form  or  mould  which 
He  requires  in  order  to  the  communication  of 
His  spiritual  substance  to  us,  and  the  consequent 
building  us  up  in  the  deathless  fellowship  of  His 
perfection. 

In  a  word  our  creation  by  God  in  His  own 
image,  necessarily  involves  our  redemption  from 
our  own  nature  ;  involves  our  elevation  out  of 
*  mere  physical  and  moral  into  social  and  aesthetic, 
consciousness.  For  if  as  I  have  shown  we  are 
the  offspring  of  a  perfect  love,  we  are  bound  of 
course  sooner  or  later  to  reflect  or  reproduce  such 
perfection.  An  infinite  or  perfect  love  means  a 
love  which  is  wholly  unlimited  by  self-love,  or 
is  so  essentially  incapable  of  respecting  self  as 
to  go  forth  incessantly  in  vivifying  or  giving 
being  to  whatsoever  is  intrinsically  contrary  to 


upon  our  Natural  Redemption.  135* 

itself.  If  then  God  our  creator  be  of  this 
amazing  quality,  if  His  love  be  so  truly  infi- 
nite as  to  be  love  itself,  love  without  one 
conceivable  fibre  of  self-love,  then  clearly  He 
cannot  be  content  merely  to  give  us  being 
or  render  us  self-conscious.  He  must  also 
give  us  form,  or  make  our  self-consciousness 
reflect  and  attest  His  own  perfection.  As  it 
is  said  in  Genesis  ii.  3  He  creates  us  only  to 
make  us.  Being  Himself  a  spirit  of  infinite 
Love,  He  cannot  be  content  with  anything 
short  of  an  answering  spirit  in  our  bosoms, 
however  contrary  they  be  in  themselves  to 
it  ;  a  spirit  of  genuine  fello^yship  with  our 
kind  which  shall  swallow  up  our  native  selfish- 
ness, and  make  us  each  in  our  degree  forms 
of  creative  benignity.  Simply  because  God 
Himself  is  a  being  so  perfect  in  love  —  /.  e. 
so  incapable  of  loving  Himself,  and  so  consid- 
erate only  of  what  is  not  Himself  —  as  to  be 
really  creative,  we  His  creatures  can  come  into 
His  likeness  only  in  so  far  as  our  natural  genera- 
tion becomes  the  basis  of  a  spiritual  regenera- 
tion ;  or  what  is  the  same  thing,  only  in  so  far 
as  our  native  impotence  and  imbeciH^ty  become.. 
exchanged,  for  a  cultivated  power  and  wisdom. 
And  the  indispensable  condition  of  this  change 
is,  that  our  natural  self-seeking  become  swal- 
lowed up  in  the  interests  of  our  higher  social 
unity;  that  out  of  selfish  beings  we  be  made 
social  beings ;  that  we  disown  our  native  pride 
and  independence  for  a  spirit  of  exact  equality  . 
with  our  brethren;   that  we  unlearn  in  truth  our 


136  JVe  are  Born  to  he  Re-horn. 

moral  righteousness,  a  righteousness  which  in- 
heres in  ourselves  as  finitely  constituted,  that  is, 
as  spiritually  disunited  with  our  f(dlow-inan  and 
God,  and  cultivate  a  purely  social  righteousness, 
a  righteousness  in  ourselves  as  in-finitely  consti- 
tuted, that  is,  as  redeemed  from  our  base  natural 
temper  of  mind,  and  spiritually  united  with  our 
fellow-man  and  God. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

Many  people  suppose  that  moral  and  social 
are  two  words  for  one  and  the  same  thing: 
whereas  they  express  ideas  exactly  inversive  of 
each  other,  being  reciprocaHy  related  as  shell  and 
kernel,  base  and  superstructure,  letter^and  spirit^ 
Morality  expresses  the  sentiment  I  have  of  my 
own  absoluteness,  the  feeling  I  have  of  a  self- 
hood strictly  independent  of  every  other  man. 
Society  on  the  other  hand  expresses  the  senti- 
ment I  have  of  my  strict  unity  with  eyery  other 
man,  a  unity  so  absolute  and  commanding  as  to 
stamp  my  moral  force  wholly  good  or  wholly  evil 
simply  as  it^obeys  or  disobeys  its  behests.  In 
short  the  one  sentiment  finites  nie  in  the  greatest 
possible  measure;  the  other  in-finites  me  in  equal 
measure. 

Our  morality  does  not  make  us  social  beings 
any  more  than  the  foundation  of  a  house  makes 
the  house ;  any  more  than  the  shell  of  a  nut 
makes  the  nut ;  any  more  than  the  mould  of  a 
frieze  makes  the  frieze  ;  in  short  any  more  than 
the  mother  makes  the  child.  It  merely  gives 
us  on  the  contrary  that  ample  individual  devel- 
opment and  nursing,  that  affluent  preliminary 
experience  of  our  finite  selves,  which  is  neces- 
sary to  base  or  engender  our  subsequent  unlim- 


138  Morality  a  Preparation  for 

_ited  social  expansion^.  It  lifts  us  out  of  the  mud 
of  animality,  out  of  the  mire  of  mere  natural 
passion  and  appetite,  and  endows  us  with  sel>~ 
hood  or  soul,  that  is,  with  the  sense  of  a  life  so 
much  more  intimate  and  near  than  that  of  the 
body,  as  to  lead  us  to  identify  ourselves  with  it 
or  to  cleave  to  it  alone,  cheerfully  forsaking  all* 
things  for  it.  Thus  morality  extricates  us  from 
the  life  of  mineral  vegetable  and  animal ;  gives 
us  commanding  selfhood  or  freedom,  freedom 
to  be  not  what  our  fathers  and  mothers  make 
us,  as  is  the  case  with  the  brute,  but  whatsoever 
we  ourselves _chqpse  to  become  :  so  allying  us 
to  our  own  inexperienced  imaginations  with 
God ;  giving  us  that  sentiment  of  individual 
power  and  glory  which  is  unknown  to  the  ani- 
mal nature,  and  which  is  the  coarse  rude  germ 
of  all  our  subsequent  conceptions  of  spiritual 
things;  whispering  in  short  in  our  fondest  hearts, 
Te  shall J^e  as  God  knowing  good  and  evil.  In  a 
word,  morality  is  the  power  which  every  man 
as  man  possesses,  to  rise  above  those  natural  lim- 
itations which  bind  all  lower  existence,  and  ap- 
pear himself  alone,  unrelated  to  any  one  else. 

Self-assertion  is  thus  so  clearly  the  fundamen- 
tal law,  the  vital  breath,  of  our  moral  life,  that 
it  isjio  wonder  we  cling  to  that  life  as  the  true 
end  of  our  being,  and  require  an  internal  Divine 
quickening,  or  the  denunciatory  voice  of  con- 
science, before  we  consent  to  regard  it  simply  as 
a  means  to  an  infinitely  higher  end.  which  is  our 

^  unity  withLall  mankind.      The  inspiration  of  the 
moral  sentiment,  the   sentiment  of  self  hood,  is 


our  Spiritual  Regeneration.  139 

so  powerful  within  us  ;  it  is  so  sweet  to  feel  this 
deHcious  bosom  inmate  disengage  itself  from  its 
gross  carnal  envelope,  and  come  forth  a  radiant 
white-armed  Eve  full  formed  in  all  Divine  vigor 
and  beauty,  that  we  cannot  help  clasping  it  to 
our  bosoms  as  thenceforth  bone  of  our  bone  and 
flesh  of  our  flesh,  cheerfully  forsaking  for  it 
father  and  mother ;  or  all  we  have  traditionally 
loved  and  traditionally  believed ;  and  cleaving 
undismayed  to  its  fortunes  though  it  lead  us 
through  the  gloom  of  death  and  the  fires  of 
hell. 

But  just  this  irresistible  sweetness  of  the  self- 
hood, or  jnoral JorcCj^  in  us,as  what  makes  it  all 
the  more  a  snareto  us,  if  it  be  considered  a  final 
and  not  a  mediate  gift  of  God :  /.  e.  if  it  be  al- 
lowed to  control  in  place  of  simply  serving  the 
social  sentiment  to  which  alone  it  is  Divinely 
tributary.  Accordingly  every  man  whose  aspi- 
rations are  elevated  above  the  ground,  every  man 
who  desires  above  all  things  to  ally  himself  spir- 
itually with  the  Divine  spirit,  finds  his  great  con- 
troversy to  lie  with  himself;  with  this  moral 
temper  of  his  own  mind ;  finds  the  sole  hin- 
drance of  his  aspirations  to  lie  in  this  ferocious 
pride  of  selfhood,  which  is  indeed  an  every  way 
indispensable  soil  for  the  fiiture  spiritual  plant, 
but  a  soil  nevertheless  from  which  the  plant  is 
bound  sedulously  to  grow  away.  Such  a  man 
perceives  at  once  that  his  moral  life  is  not  the 
end  of  his  being,  but  on  the  contrary  a  wholly 
subordinate  means  to  that  end,  which  is  spiritual 
life  or  cultivated  conformity  to  God,  growing 


140  Morality  the  Suhje^  Earth 

out  of  his  unaffected  acknowledgment  of  hu- 
man unity:  so  that  far  from  cherishing  the  pride 
which  is  instinctive  to  morahty,  pride  of  self- 
hood, pride  of  character,  pride  of  differential 
righteousness,  he  daily  unlearns  that  foolish 
conceit,  and  cultivates  instead  relations  of  the 
tenderest  amity  and  equality  with  all  other 
men. 

It  is  very  easy  to  see  then  that  the  pride  of 
morality  is  just  as  sure  to  stifle  God's  true  life  in 
us  which  is  the  social  life,  unless  we  keep  dili- 
gent watch  over  it,  as  the  cellars  of  our  houses 
are  sure  to  poison  the  air  of  the  upper  stories, 
unless  we  bestir  ourselves  to  keep  them  dry  and 
clean.  Self-love  is  the  vital  atmosphere  of  mo- 
rality and  there  can  be  no  extrication  from  it  but 
by  honest  conflict  with  it,  conflict  if  need   be 

__eYjen.unto  death.  Some  men  have  been  more 
grievously  lacerated  in  this  conflict  than  others, 
going  down  to  their  graves  scourged  by  the  con- 
tempt of  the  proud  and  unthinking,  with  ban- 
ners once  so  lofty  now  all  trailing  in  the  dust  of 
men's  reproach.  But  this  is  not  because  they 
were  spiritually  any  worse  than  other  men  ; 
probably  the  exact  contrary  :  it  is  only  because 
they  had  fifty  times  the  ordinary  amount  of 
moral  or  self-righteous  force  to  start  with,  and 
it  could  only  become  spiritually  weakened  and 
overcome  by  this  terrific  personal  humiliation. 
For  every  man  in  the  exact  ratio  of  his  moral 
force  is  implicitly  and  of  necessity  full  of  self-con- 
fidence, full  of  pride  in  himself,  and  therefore  ex- 

I  plicitly  whenever  occasion  offers  full  of  contempt 


of  spiritual  Existence.  141 

towards  others.^  And  he  becomes  spiritually  re- 
generated, or  inwardly  conjoined  with  God,  only 
by  honestly  subjecting  the  base  instinct  to  culture: 
which  means,  compelling  himself  into  relations  of 
the  frankest  equity  with  all  mankind. 

Morality  is  thus  only  the  subject  earth  of  spir- 
itual existence;  just  as  animality  is  that  of  moral 
existence,  and  vegetality  that  of  animal  exist- 
ence, and  minerality  that  of  vegetable  existence. 
All  existence  real  and  personal  is  thus  hierar- 
chically distributed,  each  successive  form  being 
a  natural  unit  or  marriage  of  two  discordant 
forces,  and  becoming  by  its  own  subsequent  spir- 
itual variety  the  basis  in  its  turn  of  a  still  higher 
unity.  The  lower  forms  in  every  case  are  what 
give  subjective  or  constitutional  identity  (that  is, 
body)  to  the  higher  form.  The  higher  form 
again  in  its  turn  is  what  gives  objective  or  crea- 
tive individuality  (that  is,  soul)  to  the  lower 
forms.  The  mineral  gives  material  existence, 
or  body  to  the  vegetable ;  but  the  vegetable 
gives  spiritual  being  or  soul  to  the  mineral,  by 

1  I  know  that  these  broad  state-  redeemed  natural  mind,  the  mere 
ments  of  the  evil  pertaining  to  conscience  of  disunion  which  ex- 
human  nature  will  affront  the  ists  between  man  and  God  by 
distinctively  religious  develop-  nature,  but  rather  that  nascent 
ment  of  our  day  and  generation,  regenerate  consciousness  of  the 
which  is  the  Unitarian  one  :  but  race  which  is  being  vitalized  by 
I  take  a  pungent  satisfaction  nev-  the  advancing  tides  of  God's 
ertheless  in  making  the  line  of  holy  spirit  in  humanity,  the  spirit 
demarcation  between  the  two  of  human  society  fellowship  or 
doctrines  sharp  and  clear,  be-  equality.  It  is  this  consideration 
cause  it  should  always  be  re-  which,  leaving  Unitarianism  to- 
membered  that  Unitarianism  in  tally  imbecile  as  a  philosophic 
so  far  forth  as  it  is  a  genuine  doctrine,  yet  makes  it  blessedly 
outbirth  of  our  intellectual  his-  significant  and  welcome  as  an 
tory,  reflects  no  longer  the  utt-  historic  fact. 


142       Natural  Existences  Forms  of  Use. 

calling  forth  its  uses  to  a  higher  unity.  The 
vegetable  gives  material  existence  or  body  to 
the  animal  form,  which  latter  again  endows  the 
vegetable  with  spiritual  life  or  soul,  in  calling 
forth  its  uses  to  a  superior  style  of  being.  So 
the  animal  in  like  manner  gives  visible  or  bodily 
constitution  to  man,  while  man  gives  invisible 
or  spiritual  soul  to  the  animal  kingdom  by  evok- 
ing its  various  uses  to  his  own  higher  develop- 
ment. And  so  also  man  in  his  turn  gives  visi- 
ble form  or  bodily  manifestation  to  God,  while 
God  again  gives  creative  substance,  soul,  or 
unity  to  man  in  calling  forth  man's  various  sub- 
serviency to  His  own  infinite  and  uncreated 
unity. 

All  natural  existence  may  be  classified  into 
forms  of  use  ;  all  spiritual  existence  into  forms 
of  power.  Every  real  existence,  whatsoever  we 
rightly  denominate  a  thing  as  addressing  any  of 
our  senses,  is  a  form  of  use  to  superior  exist- 
ence. Every  spiritual  existence,  whatsoever  we 
rightfully  denominate  a  person  as  addressing  our 
interior  perception,  is  a  form  of  power  over 
inferior  existence.  Thus  the  vegetable  on  its 
material  side  is  a  form  of  use  to  the  animal 
kingdom,  as  giving  it  sustenance  ;  while  on  its 
spiritual  side  it  is  a  form  of  power  over  the 
mineral  kingdom,  as  compelling  it  into  the  ser- 
vice of  its  own  distinctive  individuality.  The 
animal  again  on  its  visible  or  corporeal  side  is  a 
purely  subjective  implication  of  the  human  form, 
while  on  its  spiritual  or  invisible  side  it  furnishes 
the  creative  unity  or  objectivity  of  the  vegeta- 


spiritual  Existences  Forms  of  Power.     143 

ble  world.  So  again  man  while  on  his  natural 
side  he  furnishes  a  helpless  platform  or  basis  to 
the  manifestation  of  God's  perfection,  yet  as  to 
his  spiritual  or  individual  aptitudes  he  compels 
not  merely  the  animal  but  all  the  lower  king- 
doms of  nature  to  bear  resistless  testimony  to  his 
power. 

But  in  thus  classifying  all  natural  existence 
into  forms  of  use,  and  all  spiritual  existence  into 
forms  of  power,  we  must  not  forget  to  observe 
that  the  use  promoted  by  the  one  class  is  never 
absolutely  but  only  relatively  good,  nor  the 
power  exerted  by  the  other  class  absolutely  but 
only  relatively  benignant.  That  is  to  say,  it  is 
good  and  benignant  not  in  itself,  but  in  opposi- 
tion to  something  else.  Thus  every  natural 
form  is  a  form  of  use,  but  some  of  these  uses 
are  relatively  to  others  good,  and  some  evil. 
Some  minerals  nourish  vegetation,  others  starve 
it.  Some  vegetables  enrich  animal  life,  others 
poison  it.  Some  animals  again  are  cheerfully 
serviceable  to  human  life,  others  fiercely  inimi- 
cal  to  it  So  also  when  we  contemplate  human 
nature  we  find  some  of  its  forms  relatively  ac- 
cordant with  the  Divine  perfection,  others  rela- 
tively to  these  prior  ones  again  most  discordant; 
the  former  exerting  a  decidedly  benignant  influ- 
ence upon  whatever  is  subject  to  them,  the  latter 
exerting  a  decidedly  malignant  influence. 

This  contrarious  aspect  both  of  nature  and 
man  has  given  rise,  as  the  reader  well  knows, 
to  a  great  amount  of  unsatisfactory  specula- 
tion, because   men    have  scarcely   known   how, 


144  Nature's  Discords 

apart  from  the  light  of  Revelation,  to  shape 
their  speculations  into  accordance  with  the  de- 
mands of  the  Divine  unity.  The  demand  of 
unity  in  the  creator  is  so  peremptory  and  inflex- 
ible, that  the  mind  utterly  refuses  in  the  long 
run  to  acquiesce  in  any  scheme  of  creation  which 
leaves  creation  divided,  or  puts  the  creator  in 
permanent  hostility  with  any  portion  of  His 
work.  More  than  this.  The  mind  not  only 
rejects  these  puerile  cosmologies  which  leave  the 
creator  at  war  with  His  own  creature,  but  it 
goes  further  and  insists,  by  an  inevitable  presen- 
timent of  the  great  philosophic  verity,  that 
wherever  we  find  a  sphere  of  life  antagonistic 
with  itself,  the  antagonism  is  purely  phenome- 
nal :  /.  e.  is  not  final,  does  not  exist  for  its  own 
sake  but  only  in  the  interest  of  some  higher 
unity.  Thus  the  good  and  evil  attributable  to 
mineral  existence  are  not  absolute,  do  not  attach 
to  the  mineral  itself,  but  only  to  its  relative  sub- 
serviency or  contrariety  to  the  needs  of  vegeta- 
ble existence.  So  the  good  and  evil  attributable 
to  vegetable  forms  bear  reference  exclusively  to 
the  difference  of  bearing  they  exert  upon  ani- 
mal existence  ;  while  the  good  and  evil  again 
of  animal  existence  attach  not  to  the  animal 
forms  themselves,  but  only  to  the  positive  or 
negative  relation  they  sustain  to  the  human 
form. 

The  same  rule  holds  in  regard  to  moral  exist- 
ence, though  the  nonsensical  pride  we  feel  in 
ourselves  habitually  blinds  us  to  the  fact.  I  am 
not  a  bad  man  morally,  and  you  a  good  man, 


harmonized  in  Man.  145 

by  virtue  of  any  absolute  or  essential  difference 
between  us,  but  altogether  by  virtue  of  the  dif- 
ference in  our  relation  to  that  great  unitary  life 
of  God  in  our  nature,  which  we  call  society, 
fraternity,  fellowship,  equality,  and  which  from 
the  beginning  of  human  history  has  been  strug- 
gling to  work  itself,  by  means  of  this  strictly 
subjective  antagonism,  into  final  perfect  and  ob- 
jective recognition  :  you  as  a  morally  good  man 
being  positively  related  to  that  life  ;  I  as  a  mor- 
ally evil  one  being  negatively  related  to  it.  The 
needs  of  this  great  life  —  which  alone  manifests 
God's  spiritual  presence  in  our  nature  —  require 
the  utmost  conceivable  intensity  of  human  free- 
dom; require  in  other  words  that  man  should  be 
spontaneously  good,  good  of  himself,  good  with- 
out any  antagonism  of  evil,  infinitely  good  even 
as  God  is  good.  But  clearly  if  we  had  had  no 
preliminary  acquaintance  with  imperfect  or  finite 
good,  good  as  related  to  evil,  we  should  be  desti- 
tute of  power  to  appreciate  or  even  apprehend  this 
higher  and  perfect  good.  If  we  had  not  first 
suffered,  and  suffered  too  most  poignantly,  from 
the  experience  of  evil  in  ourselves  as  morally, 
i.  e.  finitely,  constituted,  constituted  in  reciprocal 
independency  each  of  every  other,  we  should 
have  been  utterly  unable  even  to  discern  that 
ineffable  Divine  and  infinite  good  which  is  yet 
to  be  revealed  in  us  as  socially,  /.  e.  infinitely 
constituted,  constituted  in  the  closest  reciprocal 
unity  of  all  with  each  and  each  with  all. 

Even  as  nature's  discords  then  bid  us  look  up- 
wards to  man  in  order  to  find  their  point  of  ad- 


146  Our  Moral  Discords 

justment  or  unity,  so  the  discords  of  our  moral 
nature  bid  us  look  higher  still,  namely  to  the 
Lord  or  Divine  natural  man,  in  whose  tran- 
scendent personality  all  these  discords  are  finally 
appeased.  Nature's  contrarieties  reflect  her  in- 
trinsic subordination  to  the  needs  of  human  life. 
In  the  same  way  our  moral  differences  imply  no 
absolute  merit  or  demerit  in  us,  but  simply  re- 
flect the  diversity  of  our  actual  relation  to  that 
great  social  destiny  in  which  we  are  all  alike 
Divinely  bound  up. 

Our  social  manhood  is  thus  the  true  travail  of 
the  redeemer's  soul.  This  at  last  is  Christ's 
great  life  become  ours,  God's  holy  name  hal- 
lowed in  our  bosoms,  His  benignant  kingdom 
come  in  the  plenitude  of  its  power,  and  His 
gracious  will  done  on  earth,  the  earth  of  the 
natural  mind,  as  faultlessly  as  it  has  hitherto 
been  done  in  heaven,  the  heaven  of  the  spirit- 
ual mind.  For  the  social  sentiment,  the  senti- 
ment of  human  society,  human  brotherhood, 
human  equality,  exhibits  the  two  warring  loves 
.  of  the  human  bosom,  self-love  and  neighborly 
love,  interest  and  principle,  pleasure  and  duty, 
in  such  perfect  unison  as  that  neither  can  possi- 
bly prompt  anything  contrary  to  the  other,  but 
both  alike  stand  eternally  pledged  to  the  promo- 
tion of  an  entirely  new  spirit  in  man,  a  spirit  of 
the  widest  fellowship,  of  the  freest  and  tender- 
est  unity  with  every  other  man.  This  social 
development  constitutes  an  absolutely  new  na- 
ture in  man,  a  Divinely  renewed  heart  and 
mind,  which  shall  make  all  Divine  ways  easy  to 


harmonized  in  Society.  147 

follow.  ""^/«  those  days,''  says  the  promise/  "  I 
will  put  my  law  in  their  inward  parts,  and  write 
it  on  their  hearts^  And  where  the  heart  prompts 
it,  obedience  of  course  is  sure.  The  same  ex- 
alted truth  was  prefigured  by  the  legal  sacrifices 
in  which  all  things  were  purged  with  blood ; 
the  blood  of  the  sacrificial  victim  representing 
the  renewed  affections  of  the  worshipper,  which 
would  finally  redeem  him  from  outward  defile- 
ment, and  unite  him  with  God. 

Thus  I  have  no  hesitation  in  avowing  my 
conviction  that  the  total  problem  of  creation 
infallibly  merges  in  the  social  problem,  inevita- 
bly leads  us  to  regard  a  perfect  society  or  fellow-  | 
ship  among  men  as  the  one  grand  aim  of  God's 
providence  on  earth,  to  which  of  course  our 
moral  and  religious  history  ,has  been  strictly 
incidental  and  tributary.  For  society  is  the 
guardian  of  our  destiny  as  a  race,  the  race  hav- 
ing as  rigid  a  unity  as  any  of  its  individual 
members ;  and  society  is  the  only  fitting  and 
intelligible  form  of  this  unity.  We  are  wont 
to  say  that  the  being  of  God  consists  in  His 
unity,  in  His  being  the  all  of  life,  and  therefore 
excluding  community ;  the  very  perfection  or 
infinitude  of  this  unity  consisting  in  the  fact, 
that  of  the  two  elements  which  logically  com- 
pose it,  individuality  and  universality,  the  former 
or  feminine  element  controls  and  involves  the 
latter  or  masculine  element.  In  like  manner, 
though  inversely,  we  may  say  that  the  essence 
of  nature  is  community,  /.  e,  a  unity  which  each 

1  Jer.   31. 


148  Man's  Social  Development 

of  her  subjects  shares  equally  with  every  other, 
and  hence  excludes  all  true  or  spiritual  individ- 
uality :  her  very  imperfection  or  finiteness  being 
demonstrable  from  the  fact  that  of  the  two  ele- 
ments which  go  logically  to  constitute  her  com- 
munity, each  and  all,  or  individuality  and  univer- 
sality, the  latter  or  masculine  element  effectually 
dominates  and  swallows  up  the  former  or  femi- 
nine element.  Now  our  moral  history  is  but 
the  actual  arrangement  and  bringing  forth  to 
sight  of  this  immense  but  unsuspected  dearth 
of  spirituality  in  nature ;  is  only  the  gradual 
draining  off  and  exhaustion  of  our  latent  natu- 
ral worthlessness  and  imbecility,  in  order  to  our 
eventual  thorough  impletion  with  all  Divine 
goodness  wisdom  and  power.  The  sole  mis- 
sion of  conscience  (which  is  a  limitation  of  the 
moral  sentiment,  the  sentiment  of  what  is  due 
to  oneself,  by  the  social  sentiment,  the  senti- 
ment of  what  is  due  to  one's  neighbor,)  has 
been  to  give  us  true  self-knowledge,  and  so 
qualify  us  for  the  true  knowledge  of  God.  This 
it  does  by  vivifying  within  our  individual  bos- 
oms this  communistic  aiiimus  of  the  race,  or 
bringing  into  sharp  actuality  the  perfect  disre- 
spect which  every  merely  natural  man  feels  for 
his  brother.  Its  efficacy  is  however  distinctly 
purgative  not  nutritive.  Its  invariable  burden 
is  to  prove  to  its  subject  that  he,  by  virtue  sim- 
ply of  his  natural  genesis,  and  apart  from  God's 
redeeming  presence  and  operation  in  his  nature, 
seeks  as  far  as  in  him  lies  to  subjugate  all  man- 
kind to  himself,  and  to  appropriate  to  his  own 


the  outcome  of  Redemption.  14() 

ostentatious  uses  all  the  wealth  of  nature.  Con- 
science is  thus  an  indisputable  ministry  of 
death,  universal  death  to  every  child  of  Adam 
that  obeys  it :  but  of  course  this  death  in  our- 
selves as  finitely  constituted,  as  carnally  pro- 
nounced, as  morally  characterized,  is  purely 
incidental  and  transitory,  being  in  fact  but 
the  needful  background  or  anchorage  which 
our  inexperience  requires  in  order  to  our  grasp 
of  that  endless  and  perfect  life  in  ourselves 
which  we  realize  as  socially  constituted,  as  spir- 
itually pronounced,  as  aesthetically  characterized, 
in  the  second  Adam.  For  when  our  moral  ex- 
perience has  run  itself  dry,  that  is  to  say,  when 
it  has  revealed  to  us  the  abysses  of  spiritual  dis- 
ease disorder  and  death  we  are  in  by  nature,  it 
becomes  so  enfeebled  as  no  longer  to  offer  any 
opposition  to  the  access  of  the  social  sentiment 
in  our  bosoms,  by  which  we  finally  become  ele- 
vated out  of  this  chaotic  natural  communism  into 
orderly  human  proportions,  and  so  made  a  taber- 
nacle worthy  of  the  creator's  amplest  indwelling. 
Our  experience  avouches  the  utter  incompati- 
bility of  the  moral  sentiment  (regarded  as  a  life- 
giving  power)  with  the  social  sentiment;  it  be- 
ing manifestly  impossible  that  any  one  should 
feel  the  spiritual  brotherhood  or  equality  of  an- 
other, to  whom  at  the  same  time  he  feels  him-i 
self  morally  or  personally  superior.  The  prog- 
ress of  human  society  accordingly,  the  ever- 
deepening  sentiment  of  human  fellowship,  is 
fast  obliterating  our  moral  manhood,^  that  petty 

1  See  Appendix,  Note  A. 


150  The  Moral  Sentiment  destined 

manhood  which  stands  in  the  conception  of  a 
purely  personal  merit  and  demerit  among  men. 
It  is  this  infirm  conception  which  has  organized 
all  the  institutions  of  the  old  world,  and  is  now 
fast  leaving  them  to  their  righteous  doom  with- 
out the  meed  of  a  disinterested  sigh  or  tear.  In 
the  new  world  which  is  opening  its  pearly  gates 
for  the  redeemed  of  the  Lord  to  enter,  that  great 
city,  the  holy  Jerusalem,  which  is  even  now  de- 
scending from  God  out  of  heaven  having  all 
the  glory  of  God,  ''neither  circumcision  availeth 
anything  nor  uncircumcision^  but  a  new  crea- 
ture :  "  /.  e.  a  mind  of  such  frank  and  fearless 
fellowship  with  whatsoever  bears  the  name  of 
man,  as  makes  all  virtue  to  lie  in  the  practical 
•recognition  of  human  equality  and  all  vice  in 
its  denial.  There  and  then  of  course  every 
man  will  prove  by  the  simple  force  of  his  man- 
hood alone,  an  every  way  worthy  subject  of  the 
Divine  infinitude. 

The  endowment  of  man  with  this  renovated 
or  Divine-natural  form,  is  much  more  than  equiv- 
alent to  all  the  advantage  which  has  hitherto 
accrued  from  his  isolated  individual  regeneration, 
because  it  exhibits  a  fulfilment  where  the  latter 
exhibited  only  a  pledge  or  promise.  The  im- 
portance of  regeneration  as  a  principle  of  the 
Divine  administration  ;  its  public  interest  as  dis- 
tinguished from  its  private  incidental  interest  to 
its  personal  subject;  lay  exclusively  in  the  fur- 
therance it  always  ministered  to  the  precise  re- 
sult here  contemplated,  namely,  the  inauguration 
of  a  perfect  human  society  or  fellowship.       It 


to  Social  Glorification.  151 

was  an  Implicit  recognition  of  human  fellowship 
when  as  yet  there  was  no  explicit  recognition  of 
it  possible  ;  a  negative  religious  expression  of 
the  truth  when  as  yet  there  could  be  no  positive 
scientlficL-expression  of  it,  when  as  yet  in  short 
the  great  truth  of  human  brotherhood  was  wholly 
submerged  under  the  natural  communism  of  the 
race,  or  at  best  held  in  mute  abeyance  to  mere 
ecclesiastical  and  political  usage.  So  long  as 
the  Divine  truth  lay  latent  and  unsuspected 
under  these  tenacious  carnal  coverings ;  so  long 
as  the  spotless  inward  innocence  and  boundless 
outward  power  to  which  universal  man  is  des- 
tined by  virtue  of  his  derivation  from  infinite 
Love  and  Wisdom,  lay  wrapped  up  concealed 
and  almost  stifled  under  these  rude  symbolic  husks 
of  priest  and  king,  or  else  came  forth  only  to  be 
universally  discredited  reviled  and  crucified :  so 
long  of  course  the  individual  spiritual  regenera- 
tion of  man  was  the  most  sacred  of  truths,  be- 
cause it  furnished  the  sole  armory  to  the  Divine 
spirit  whereby  to  combat  evil  in  the  human 
bosom,  or  precipitate  self-love  from  its  usurped 
supremacy  over  neighborly  love.  The  regener- 
ate spirit  is  one  of  the  strictest  fellowship  or 
equality:  that  is  to  say,  it  prompts  its  subject 
invariably  to  forbear  doing  to  others  what  he 
•would  not  have  others  do  to  himself,  and  invari- 
ably to  do  to  others  what  he  would  have  others 
do  to  him.  This  is  a  truly  regenerate  temper 
in  man,  because  naturally  every  man  loves  him- 
self more  than  others,  and  so  far  as  he  can  pru- 
dently do  so  uses  the  possessions  and  even   the ' 


152  Individual  Regeneration  a  Fruit 

person  of  another  as  liis  own.  The  essentially 
communistic  quality  of  nature  renders  this  ani- 
mus inevitable.  Accordingly  unless  the  Divine 
Providence  had  all  along  the  course  of  history 
singled  out  such  persons  as  were  capable  of  spir- 
itual regeneration  without  detriment  to  their 
conscious  freedom,  evil  would  have  reigned 
uncontrolled  throughout  history,  and  creation 
consequently  have  been  stifled  in  a  vain  effort 
to  get  birth  or  put  on  form.  In  short  self-love 
which  is  the  vital  principle  of  communism  (hellj, 
would  have  forever  dominated  neighborly-love 
which  is  the  vital  principle  of  individuality 
(heaven) ;  and  thus  not  merely  man's  moral  lifi? 
which  is  the  strict  neutrality  or  indifference  of 
heaven  and  hell  would  have  been  impossible, 
but  a  fortiori  his  social  Wtc  to  which  the  moral 
life  serves  but  as  a  transition,  and  which  itself 
involves  the  intimate  and  eternal  fusion  of  heav- 
en and  hell  in  a  new  and  Divine-natural  person- 
ality of  man,  would  have  been  forever  defeated. 
We  have  only  to  glance  in  fact  at  the  literal 
page  of  history  in  order  to  verify  these  philo- 
sophic data.  The  whole  recorded  consciousness 
of  the  race,  as  exhibited  in  its  various  stages  of 
ecclesiastical  and  political  evolution,  proves  that 
the  exact  meaning  of  the  Providential  adminis- 
tration of  human  affairs  has  been  to  give  man 
social  and  esthetic  form  or  consciousness,  by 
means  of  a  sickening  experience  of  the  endless 
disease  disorder  and  death  wrapped  up  in  his 
physical  and  moral  consciousness  :  /".  e.  pertain- 
ing to  him  as  a  being  disunited  with  God  and 


of  our  Natural  Redemption.  i^^^ 

his  fellows  by  the  intervention  of  Church  and 
State,  or  priesthoods  and  governments;  and  who 
is  to  be  united  consequently  only  by  the  disap- 
pearance of  those  institutions.  In  other  words 
the  whole  record  of  God's  dealing  with  the  race, 
shows  Him  to  have  aimed  first  at  gradually  dis- 
enchanting man  of  all  pretensions  to  a  religious  , 
righteousness,  and  then  at  gradually  disabusing 
him  of  all  confidence  in  his  political  stability : 
so  ripening  him  for  the  hearty  recognition  of 
those  exclusively  Divine  laws  of  order  which 
inhere  in  his  social  constitution,  and  are  illus- 
trated in  every  form  of  spontaneous  or  produc- 
tive action. 

The  moral  experience  of  the  race  necessarily 
involves  this  double  or  divided  historic  move- 
ment which  we   name  Church  and   State  ;    the 
former  a  descending  or  centrifugal   movement 
by  means  of  which  the  creature  becomes  self- 
convinced  of  his  essential  antagonism,  as  natu-i 
rally  constituted,  to  the  Divine  perfection :  the 
latter  an  ascending  or  centripetal  movement,  by 
means  of  which  the  creature  acknowledges  him- 
self as  such  recognized  antagonist  of  the  Divine 
perfection,  to  be  rightfully  under  law  to  his  fel- 
low-man.    In  other  words  our  moral  conscious- 
ness as  negatively  reflecting  our  social  destiny, 
is  made  up  of  two  opposing  elements,  self  and  ' 
the  brother.     But  inasmuch  as  the  virus  of  their 
oppugnancy  inheres  only  in  the  former  or  active 
element,   /.  e.    in   the  selfishness  of   the   human  , 
heart,  so  the  Church  as  representing  this  element  * 
is  bound  to  serve  the  State,  or  assume  a  second- 


154  Church  and  State  are  mere 

ary  place  with  respect  to  it.  The  sole  office  of 
the  church  is  to  inspire  its  votary  with  a  convic- 
tion of  sin,  or  to  lead  him  inwardly  to  humble 
himself  before  God.  In  this  way  she  prepares 
him  for  good  citizenship,  or  disposes  him  to 
such  a  tender  recognition  of  his  neighbor's 
equality  with  himself  in  all  inward  regards,  as 
shall  practically  beget  the  strictest  outward  fel- 
lowship. The  play  of  these  two  forces  fills  the 
page  of  human  history,  until  they  succeed  at 
last  in  generating  a  third  or  grandly  unitary 
I  force  which  we  call  society,  in  which  they 
both  willingly  coalesce  and  disappear,  and  which 
consequently  thenceforth  assumes  the  undivided 
responsibility  of  human  destiny. 

Let  us  understand  then  that  the  destiny  of 
man  in  Nature  is  to  be  made  social  out  of 
moral ;  to  attain  to  a  conscience  of  perfect 
social  unity  and  order,  through  a  previous  con- 
science of  complete  moral  discord  and  disorder. 
In  a  word  our  universally  admitted  spiritual  or 
individual  regeneration,  has  always  been  but  a 
Providential  stepping-stone  and  type  of  our 
universally  ignored  natural  or  common  recrea- 
tion ;  and  what  above  all  things  is  now  incum- 
bent on  us,  is,  to  reanimate  this  drooping  but 
Divine  truth  of  human  regeneration,  by  lifting 
it  out  of  its  almost  wholly  lapsed  and  lifeless  — 
because  merely  ritual  —  private  acceptation, 
and  giving  it  a  grander  public  application, 
an  application  to  the  race  rather  than  the  in- 
dividual. 

Undoubtedly  the  race  attains  to  its  majority 


Factors  of  a  perfect  Society.  155" 

or  new-birth,  more  slowly  than  the  individual ; 
but  not  the  less  surely.  The  time  will  cer- 
tainly come  (and  I  should  say  from  existing 
signs,  very  soon  come)  when  the  public  con- 
science will  confess  and  put  away  evil  with 
as  much  alacrity  as  has  hitherto  been  illus- 
trated by  the  private  conscience.  Then  society 
will  see  what  only  an  individual  mind  here 
and  there  has  hitherto  seen,  that  our  sense  of 
infirmity  or  sin  is  never  a  token  of  the  Di- 
vine displeasure  to  us,  but  only  of  His  ten- 
derest  inward  delight  in  us  :  thus  that  we  have 
walked  the  weary  road  we  have  walked,  and 
suffered  the  bitter  things  we  have  suffered,  not 
because  God  hated  or  condemned  us,  or  had 
even  the  faintest  shadow  of  a  quarrel  with 
us,  but  solely  because  He  loved  us  with  un- 
speakable love,  and  wooed  us  in  that  unsus- 
pected way  out  of  the  death  we  have  in  our- 
selves to  the  embrace  of  His  own  incorruptible 
life. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

It  is  of  course  inevitable  that  what  I  have 
been  saying  should  prove  very  unpalatable  to 
our  existing  pride  of  Moralism,  fortified  as  it 
everywhere  feels  itself  to  be  not  only  by  the 
power  and  prestige  of  Natural  Religion,  but 
even  by  the  literal  or  quasi  countenance  of 
Revelation.^  The  highest  conception  of  life 
possible  to  the  religious  dogmatist  is  the  moral 
conception,  because  our  natural  or  unquickened 
reason,  the  reason  still  dominated  by  sense,  has 
no  discernment  but  of  finite  existence,  and  mo- 
rality constitutes  the  highest  style  of  such  exist- 
ence. Voluntary  good,  the  good  which  supposes 
a  previous  conflict  with  evil  and  rejection  of  it, 

1  I  freely  admit  that  if  we  had  ligence.  And  unless  therefore 
nothing  to  guide  us  as  to  the  it  receive  in  the  progress  of  his- 
spiritual  contents  of  Revelation  tory  some  commanding  spiritual 
but  the  Jewish  letter,  apart  from  interpretation,  it  must  confess 
the  living  explication  of  that  let-  itself  permanently  inadequate  to 
ter  furnished  by  the  Christ,  we  its  office,  and  harden  its  adherents 
should  still  be  a  long  way  off  in  hopeless  error.  It  is  this  in- 
from  any  just  recognition  of  the  sane  idolatry  of  the  mere  body  of 
Divine  infinitude.  The  letter  the  Christian  truth  fatally  blind- 
of  a  Divine  revelation  assuming  ing  us  to  its  true  spirit,  which 
as  it  necessarily  must  the  exact  everywhere  belittles  the  average 
form  of  the  intelligence  to  which  ecclesiastical  intellect,  and  ex- 
it is  addressed  (in  order  not  to  plains  the  persistent  grossness 
overpower  it),  can  at  best  only  and  carnality  of  our  ordinary  re- 
reproduce  and  authenticate  the  ligious  life, 
fallacious  judgments  of  that  intel- 


The  Constitution  of  Morality.  157 

and  therefore  implies  merit  in  the  votary,  is  the 
highest  quahty  of  good  recognizable  by  our  sen- 
suous intelligence;  as  voluntary  evil,  which  sup- 
poses an  intelligent  rejection  of  good,  and  therefore 
implies  demerit  in  the  votary,  is  the  lowest  qual- 
ity of  evil  cognizable  to  that  intelligence.  The 
possibility  of  morality  is  wholly  contingent  upon 
the  exact  balance  of  these  opposites.  In  pro- 
portion as  either  extreme  preponderates  in  the 
natural  constitution  of  the  subject,  the  freedom 
of  his  action  will  of  course  be  impaired,  and  his 
morality  to  that  extent  vitiated.  He  may  make 
thenceforth  a  very  good  dove  or  a  very  good 
serpent,  but  no  longer  a  man  containing  in  him- 
self the  stupendous  contrarieties  of  heaven  and 
hell,  or  the  exactly  equal  possibilities  of  the 
brightest  spiritual  day,  and  the  murkiest  most 
menacing  spiritual  night. 

Such  being  the  highest  conception  of  life 
possible  to  the  natural  understanding,  it  is  obvi- 
ous that  the  infinitude  which  science  ascribes  to 
Deity  is  a  moral  infinitude,  that  is  to  say,  the 
power  of  being  at  His  own  pleasure  infinitely 
good  or  infinitely  evil  towards  other  beings  than 
himself  Morality  or  autonomic  power  being 
the  characteristic  of  human  nature  with  respect 
to  the  brute  nature,  being  the  thing  which  sep- 
arates man  from  all  lower  existences,  must  of 
course  be  thought  to  ally  him  with  all  higher 
existences.  The  Divine  existence  consequently 
if  recognized  at  all  must  be  recognized  in  hu- 
man shape,  so  that  practically  the  infinite  creator 
is  always  humbled   to  the  lineaments  of  the  in- 


158         The  Letter  of  Religion  inversely 

firm  finite  creature.  In  place  of  man  made  in 
God's  image,  as  the  truth  will  eventually  be,  we 
first  see  God  everywhere  made  in  the  image  of 
man.  Hence  all  the  early  mythologies  portray 
Deity  as  an  unmixed  abomination  to  the  spirit- 
ual sense,  having  any  amount  of  purely  moral 
power,  that  is,  of  ability  and  inclination  to  asso- 
ciate Himself  with  some  persons  and  to  avert 
Himself  from  others,  and  delighting  to  exercise 
it  in  all  manner  of  benefit  to  those  that  please 
Him,  and  all  manner  of  detriment  to  those  who 
displease  Him.  The  infinite  name  of  God  is 
thus  filled  out  with  finite  substance,  until  it  re- 
flects at  last  all  the  littleness  and  depravity  of 
the  lowest  natural  mind. 

The  letter  of  the  Jewish  ritual  supplies  the 
culminating  type  in  this  order  of  ideas.  Here 
we  have  the  great  and  beneficent  creator  of  all 
men  narrowed  down  to  the  paternity  of  one 
family,  and  tliat  one  of  the  meanest  known  to 
human  kind  ;  associated  with  the  destiny  of  one 
man,  himself  a  homeless  vagabond  upon  the  face 
of  the  earth :  and  promising  all  other  men  pros- 
perity or  menacing  them  with  calamity  as  they 
should  stand  voluntarily  related  to  these.  You 
would  think  in  restricting  your  eye  to  the  letter 
of  the  Jewish  scriptures,  or  estimating  them 
apart  from  the  luminous  spiritual  explication  and 
commentary  they  met  in  the  life  death  and  res- 
urrection of  Jesus  Christ,  that  God  was  most 
strictly  a  moral  existence,  a  being  like  ourselves 
of  pure  will,  capable  on  occasion  of  the  most 
revolting  favoritism,  and  then  of  an  oppression 


Serviceable  to  its  Spirit.  159 

so  tyrannical  and  remorseless  as  to  put  our  pigmy 
iniquities  quite  out  of  countenance. 

But  the  Jewish  scriptures  fortunately  are  ut- 
terly unintelligible  apart  from  the  lustrous  inter- 
pretation they  receive  at  the  hands  of  Christianity, 
which  leaves  It  clear  as  the  sun  in  heaven  that 
the  Divine  love  has  never  contemplated  anything 
short  ot  an  unmixed  blessing  to  the  entire  race 
of  man,  has  never  designed  anything  short  of  a 
renovation  of  our  very  nature  Itself  Christ  and 
his  apostles  deny  that  the  Divine  promise  is  ever 
of  any  private  application,  of  any  personal  sig- 
nificance. They  affirm  that  all  the  promises  and 
prophecies  of  the  Bible  have  exclusive  reference 
not  to  any  progeny  of  Abraham,  nor  even  of 
Adam,  but  to  an  entirely  new  seed,  a  new  spirit- 
ual creation  of  man,  which  should  obliterate 
every  vestige  of  the  old  carnality,  and  fill  the 
natural  mind  with  the  glory  of  God  as  the 
waters  fill  the  sea.  No  doubt  this  strain  of  doc- 
trine was  so  hostile  to  the  obvious  face  of  the 
old  Testament  letter,  that  the  carnal  Jew  In  the 
exact  measure  of  his  devotion  to  that  letter,  was 
bound  to  reckon  Christ  a  blasphemer.  The 
eternal  justification  of  Jesus  however  lies  In  this, 
that  the  letter  of  a  Divine  revelation  is  of  neces- 
sity and  always  an  inverse  and  not  a  direct  meas- 
ure of  Its  spiritual  contents.  Revelation  always 
implies  a  descent  of  Divine  truth,  a  coming  down 
on  its  part  to  a  lower  plane  of  intelligence  than 
is  primarily  its  due,  in  short  a  humiliation  or 
obscuration  of  Its  legitimate  splendor,  in  order 
not    to   harm    the    dim  and  feeble   Intelligence 


l6o  Revelation  always  implies 

which  still  aspires  to  know  it.  Every  revelation 
of  God  to  man  capable  of  winning  his  assent, 
must  take  place  within  the  intelligible  limits  of 
his  own  nature.  The  validity  of  the  revelation 
is  rigidly  contingent  upon  its  familiar  adapta- 
tion to  the  intelligence  it  would  enlighten  :  and 
what  possibility  was  there  in  the  infancy  of  hu- 
man development,  that  any  son  not  merely  of 
Abram,  but  of  Adam,  should  have  caught  a  spir- 
itual glimpse  of  God,  or  have  failed  to  regard 
Him  as  the  mere  unlimited  expansion  of  every 
distinctively  human  virtue,  and  of  every  distinct- 
ively human  infirmity  *?  Besides  it  is  upon  this 
very  capacity  of  the  Divine  mercy  to  abase  itself 
to  the  level  of  the  coarsest  carnal  concupiscence 
in  the  creature,  that  the  latter's  subsequent  spir- 
itual resuscitation  in  the  Divine  image,  his  end- 
less interior  sympathy  and  conjunction  with  all 
Divine  perfection,  exclusively  pivots.  For  it  is 
only  by  perfectly  appeasing  our  natural  desires, 
by  richly  and  even  exuberantly  satisfying  every 
legitimate  appetite  and  passion  of  our  nature, 
that  the  Divine  love  succeeds  at  last  in  spiritually 
extricating  us  from  its  bondage,  and  so  conjoin- 
ing us  in  eternal  fellowship  with  Himself.  Thus 
the  integrity  of  the  Jewish  scriptures  as  an  au- 
thentic revelation  of  the  Divine  name,  hinges  to 
my  apprehension  upon  their  so  faithfully  associat- 
ing that  name  with  the  destiny  of  a  person  so 
obscure  and  worthless  in  all  conventional  estima- 
tion as  Abram  ;  with  the  interests  of  a  people 
so  every  way  selfish  and  contemptible  as  that 
which   descended  from  his   loins.      The   salient 


a  Veiling  of  Spiritual  Truth.  161 

peculiarity  of  the  Jewish  revelation  is,  that  it 
gathers  in  the  Divine  love  from  its  wonted  asso- 
ciation with  the  gorgeous  and  flaunting  dynas- 
ties of  the  earth,  with  the  recognized  and  estab- 
lished powers  of  the  world,  and  identifies  it  with 
an  unknown  powerless  and  unenlightened  indi- 
vidual man,  in  an  insignificant  corner  of  space, 
without  family  descent,  without  followers,  with- 
out wealth,  without  anything  that  attracts  the 
servile  adherence  of  men,  pledging  itself  to  turn 
all  his  solitude  into  populous  plenty,  and  make 
his  barrenness  blossom  as  the  rose.  Beginning 
thus  in  a  man  of  little  form  or  comeliness,  the 
Revelation  ends  in  one  of  less  :  in  a  man  of  so 
little  conventional  respectability  indeed  as  led 
vulgar  observers  high  and  low  to  esteem  him 
most  righteously  smitten  of  God  and  afflicted ; 
of  so  itvf  visible  resources  as  to  have  been  born 
in  a  stable,  and  to  have  been  destitute  all  his 
days  both  of  a  place  to  lay  his  head,  and  of  bread 
to  sustain  his  life ;  with  so  slender  a  regard 
moreover  for  the  established  proprieties  of  his 
time  and  country,  as  cheerfully  to  permit  the 
grateful  and  familiar  intercourse  of  the  outcast 
and  degraded,  while  he  never  came  in  contact 
with  the  most  conspicuous  piety  of  his  nation, 
but  to  rebuke  its  unconscious  hypocrisy,  and  lay 
bare  its  hidden  cruelty,  declaring  that  it  was 
then  especially  the  arch  instrument  of  Satan, 
when  it  most  believed  itself  doing  the  will  of 
heaven. 

In  no  other  way  as  I  conceive  could  the  un- 
suspected infinitude  of  the  Divine  Love  so  ade- 


i62        The  Divine  Mercy  primarily  akin 

quately  reveal  itself  as  in  thus  passing  by  all 
that  the  stupid  natural  heart  instinctively  wor- 
ships under  the  established  forms  of  learning 
decorum  eloquence  piety  talent  wealth  empire 
or  other  fetish,  to  connect  itself  with  the  lowest 
and  most  despised  things  in  man,  that  so  its  true 
character  might  be  seen  :  not  as  a  mere  moral 
force  approving  and  widening  the  existing  dif- 
ferences among  its  creatures,  but  as  a  distinct- 
ively spiritual  force  flashing  forth  the  inmost 
and  essential  unity  of  those  creatures  so  vividly 
as  not  merely  to  flood  every  contrasted  moun- 
tain-top and  valley  of  moral  inequality  among 
men  with  the  light  of  an  inextinguishable  Di- 
vine contempt  and  oblivion,  but  also  to  convert 
morality  itself,  the  total  moral  power  of  man, 
into  the  puniest  type  and  shadow  —  into  the 
most  carnal  matrix  or  earthly  mould  —  of  the 
perfected  Divine  righteousness  which  is  ulti- 
mately to  illustrate  his  nature.  Every  word  of 
Christ's  mouth,  every  act  of  his  life,  were  meant 
to  show  that  the  pride  of  morality  in  man  is 
wholly  illusory:  that  any  distinction  among  men 
of  good  and  evil  as  determined  by  the  letter  of 
the  Divine  law,  is  and  must  always  be  destitute 
of  spiritual  sanction,  inasmuch  as  all  men  be- 
ing alike  dependent  upon  God  for  all  they  are, 
have  no  just  title  spiritually  to  exalt  themselves 
one  above  another :  in  short  that  God  definitive- 
ly declines  treating  with  conventionally  right- 
eous people,  or  the  respectabilities  of  the  earth, 
on  any  other  terms  than  their  unconditional  spir- 
itual humiliation  :  which  means  their  freely  con- 


to  Man's  least  reputable  Interests.        163 

fessing  themselves  sinners  in  virtue  of  that  very 
righteousness  or  respectabiUty,  and  their  conse- 
quent renunciation  of  all  boasting  over  their  less 
fortunate  fellow-men. 

It  is  not  by  any  means  however  the  apparent 
dishonor  I  do  to  morality,  in  thus  subordinating 
it  to  the  exigencies  of  our  social  destiny,  which 
chiefly  outrages  the  prejudices  of  the  unthink- 
ing :  it  is  the  far  deeper  dishonor  I  seem  to  do 
religion  in  subjecting  it  to  the  same  command- 
ing necessity.  For  the  religious  man  is  popularly 
conceived  to  be  the  end  of  creation  ;  is  thought 
to  be  immediately  or  in  his  own  proper  person 
acceptable  to  God ;  and  a  manifest  wrong  ac- 
cordingly is  done  to  his  conventional  primacy, 
when  he  is  made  a  mere  transition  to  some  supe- 
rior style  of  manhood.  None  of  our  natural 
prejudices  is  more  intolerant,  none  yields  more 
slowly  to  the  modification  of  history,  than  this, 
namely  :  that  God  is  at  bottom  a  being  of  infi- 
nite self-love,  of  infinite  susceptibility  to  affront 
and  outrage,  and  therefore  infinite  in  his  exac- 
tions of  personal  devotion  from  His  creatures  : 
so  that  religion,  being  the  expression  of  such 
personal  devotion,  is  everywhere  taken  to  be  the 
highest  form  of  good  He  recognizes  in  His 
creature ;  an  absolute  good  indeed,  subservient 
to  nothing  else,  and  claiming  of  right  the  unlim- 
ited subservience  of  everything  else  to  itself  I 
must  at  once  dispose  myself  to  wrestle  with  this 
burly  prejudice  till  I  overthrow  it,  or  else  expose 
the  great  truth  I  advocate  to  obloquy.  If  I 
shall  have   to   traverse    considerable  g-round   in 


164      Hostility  of  the  Religious  Conscience 

doing  this,  I  hope  my  reader  will  see  the  neces- 
sity more  than  justified  in  the  sequel. 

Before  entering  however  on  a  new  chapter, 
let  me  anticipate  an  objection  of  my  reader, 
who  may  allege  that  I  have  given  an  unfair 
statement  of  the  religious  postulate,  inasmuch 
as  the  religious  votary  does  not  avowedly  wor- 
ship God  as  a  being  of  infinite  self-love,  but  on 
the  contrary,  in  words  at  all  events,  ascribes  all 
manner  of  humane  perfection  to  Him.  This  is 
true.  The  absolute  dependent  of  a  despotic 
will  is  more  apt  to  conceal  than  express  the  real 
emotions  of  his  heart  towards  that  will.  But  I 
am  talking  of  the  practical  attitude  of  the  relig- 
ious mind  towards  God ;  and  I  appeal  to  the 
entire  religious  record  of  the  race,  to  every  es- 
tablished ritual  since  time  began,  to  show  that 
while  "  the  worshipper  has  drawn  nigh  to  God 
with  his  lips,  his  heart  has  been  far  from  him." 
They  all  alike  prove  that  God  has  always  been 
practically  regarded  by  his  authorised  worship- 
per as  a  being  of  the  pettiest  personal  aims,  and 
of  an  intercourse  with  His  creatures  so  purely 
commercial,  that  anything  like  spontaneous  love 
and  reverence  towards  Him  is  utterly  out  of  the 
question. 

But  I  come  nearer  home,  and  make  my  ap- 
peal to  the  reader's  own  consciousness,  if  it  be 
an  orthodox  one,  with  a  triumphant  certainty  of 
being  justified  by  it.  For  our  orthodox  eccle- 
siasticism  proceeds  upon  the  notion  of  God 
being  a  spirit  full  to  repletion  of  self-love  :  so 
full  in  fact  of  exorbitant  regard  to  Himself  in 


to  God's  Spiritual  Perfe^ion.  165 

all  His  intercourse  with  His  creatures,  that  He 
is  incapable  of  forgiving  their  infirmities  freely 
and  frankly  as  they  themselves  are  capable  of 
forgiving  one  another  ;  and  demands  instead, 
like  a  bloodier  Shylock,  that  every  base  forfeit- 
ure of  his  bond  be  literally  paid  down.  What 
does  orthodoxy  say  for  example  of  the  Christian 
atonement '?  What  light  does  it  make  that 
great  transaction  to  shed  upon  the  Divine  char- 
acter ■? 

Why,  it  makes  the  Christian  atonement  to 
turn  altogether  upon  a  something  suffered  by 
Christ  to  placate  the  Divine  nature,  rather  than  a 
something  done  by  him  to  purify  the  human  na- 
ture :  so  placing  the  obstacle  to  man's  salvation, 
not  in  man's  own  purely  constitutional  infirmity 
where  alone  it  belongs,  but  in  the  immitigable 
savagery  of  his  creative  source,  in  the  essential 
inhumanity  of  God.  Substitution  is  of  course 
the  enforced  mechanism  of  the  orthodox  scheme, 
because  otherwise  the  Divine  love  would  be  de- 
nied even  a  mercenary  manifestation,  even  a 
moonlight  radiance.  /For  the  scheme  postulates 
God  as  a  being  of  such  essential  malignity  (eu-  , 
phemistically  called  holiness)  as  to  require  that  i 
His  thirst  of  blood  once  aroused  by  the  sin  of 
His  own  abject  and  helpless  creatures,  should  be  ' 
slaked  only  in  one  of  two  ways  :  either  1.  by 
the  substantive  reduction  of  these  creatures  them- 
selves to  eternal  misery ;  or  else  2.  by  the  sub- 
stitution in  their  place  of  an  exquisitely  innocent 
victim,  whose  pangs  compensating  by  their  in- 
tensity what  they  lacked  in  volume,  might  lend 


l66  The  fearful  Falsification  which 

such  keenness  of  satisfaction  to  the  Divine  ap- 
petite for  vengeance,  as  would  practically  amount 
to  an  eternal  glut. 

Judged  of  by  either  alternative  this  scheme 
is  obviously  fatal  to  the  Divine  character ;  re- 
duces the  Divine  name  indeed  below  the  level 
of  the  lowest  diabolism.  For  the  devil's  evil 
is  the  evil  of  a  finite  nature  merely  :  /.  e. 
springs  out  of  his  inability  to  compass  his  own 
ends  of  life,  which  are  the  loves  of  self  and 
of  the  world,  without  damage  to  the  interests 
of  other  people.  Accordingly  if  you  could 
only  release  the  devil  from  this  limitation,  and 
give  his  aims  practical  infinitude,  by  making 
the  interests  of  other  men  freely  harmonic  with 
his  own,  or  what  is  the  same  thing,  by  ordain- 
ing a  scientific  society  among  men,  you  would 
perfectly  and  permanently  deliver  him  from 
evil,  and  make  him  at  last  overtly  what  he  has 
always  been  covertly  the  pledge  and  purchase 
of  a  true  Divine  order  on  earth.  But  the  evil 
here  orthodoxly  alleged  of  God  inheres  in  Him- 
self as  infinitely  constituted,  and  is  therefore 
wholly  irrespective  of  His  relations  to  others.  It 
is  a  vindictiveness  or  ferocity  which  is  alleged  to 
inhere  in  His  proper  infinitude,  or  to  grow  out 
of  His  relations  to  Himself,  and  is  consequently 
independent  of  everything  subsequently  to  arise 
in  His  intercourse  with  His  creatures.  Clearly 
then  I  have  no  need  to  go  a  step  outside  the 
objector's  own  consciousness,  in  order  to  prove 
ritual  religion  a  very  real  though  most  uncon- 
scious  dishonor   to  the   Divine   name :    a   most 


Orthodoxy  makes  of  the  Atonement.       167 

thorough  though  most  undesigned  obscuration 
of  the  Divine  perfection.  And  this  is  Hterally 
what  its  whole  history  amounts  to,  namely  :  a 
spiritual  denial,  under  the  guise  of  a  formal  ac- 
knowledgment, of  the  creative  infinitude,  oper- 
ated by  the  still  unsubdued  lusts  of  pride  and 
covetousness  in  the  human  bosom. 


CHAPTER    X. 


Nothing  I  am  persuaded  can  be  more  fa- 
tally misleading  to  a  cultivated  regard,  than  to 
accept  the  testimony  of  the  mere  religious  con- 
science as  of  any  direct  worth,  or  as  final,  in  re- 
spect to  Divine  things.  Death  not  life  is  the 
inevitable  guerdon  of  that  mistake,  if  it  be  per- 
manently confirmed  by  the  intellect ;  /.  e.  a  spir- 
itual stupor  to  which  physical  death  bears  only 
a  feeble  analogy;  a  dim  typical  significance.  The 
religious  consciousness  of  man  —  what  we  call 
Natural  Religion,  meaning  thereby  a  conscience 
unenlightened  by  Revelation  —  is  never  a  bless- 
ing but  always  a  curse,  if  the  votary  be  satisfied 
with  it,  if  it  give  him  intellectual  repose  instead 
of  uneasiness.  It  is  a  blessing  only  in  so  far  as 
it  disturbs  him  or  leaves  him  unsatisfied,  by  con- 
fessing like  the  Jewish  law  its  own  insufficiency 
to  appease  the  need  of  the  worshipper,  and 
pointing  for  its  fulfilment  to  something  beyond 
itself  A  bare  glance  at  the  benighted  state  of 
the  heathen  nations,  among  whom  natural  relig- 
ion has  undergone  no  modification  from  Revela- 
tion, suffices  to  show  the  utterly  palsying  influ- 
ence which  the  religious  instinct  when  left  to 
itself  exerts  upon  intellectual  progress.  In  fact 
a  large  survey  of  the  operation  of  the  religious 


Testimony  of  Experience.  169 

instinct  in  history  (the  instinct  which  prompts  a 
man  to  aspire  after  direct  personal  relations  to 
God,  relations  determined  by  his  moral  qualifi- 
cations) would  lead  us  to  infer  that  its  sole  func- 
tion had  been  to  illustrate  the  profound  and 
otherwise  unimaginable  baseness  of  the  human 
heart,  or  bring  forth  its  latent  pride  and  selfish- 
ness in  forms  so  profuse,  so  wanton,  so  diabolic, 
as  to  make  us  at  last  gladly  renounce  the  possi- 
bility of  a  moral  righteousness,  and  cling  instead 
solely  to  those  laws  of  positive  order  which  are 
Divinely  revealed  in  the  great  truth  of  human 
society  or  fellowship. 

But  we  need  not  traverse  the  history  of  the 
race  to  justify  this  momentous  conclusion.  The 
appeal  is  direct  to  our  own  individual  bosoms, 
to  our  own  private  experience.  Every  man 
emancipated  from  ecclesiastical  superstition,  or 
in  the  habit  of  dealing  fairly  with  his  own 
intellect,  spontaneously  unlearns  and  becomes 
ashamed  of  his  distinctively  religious  activity  — 
that  which  is  motived  upon  the  essential  contin- 
gency of  the  Divine  mercy,  or  implies  a  state 
of  suspended  animation  in  it  towards  the  wor- 
shipper until  he  jog  it  into  action  by  prayer  or 
other  pious  sacrifice  —  because  he  perceives  it 
to  be  inwardly  reeking  with  unbelief  and  insult 
to  the  Divine  name.  No  man  whatever  could 
for  an  instant  tolerate  in  himself  any  such  meri- 
torious attitude  as  this  towards  God,  unless  the 
moral  force  in  him,  the  sentiment  of  a  selfhood 
underived  from  God,  had  so  corrupted  his  spir- 
itual innocence  and  blinded  him  to  the  truth  of 


lyo  T^he  Jim  of  all  Revelation 

things,  as  to  give  him  a  quasi  independence  of 
God,  and  make  the  tree  of  knowledge  of  good 
and  evil  therefore  seem  to  bear  the  only  fruit 
suitable  to  nourish  and  make  him  wise.  If  not 
only  my  seeming  but  my  real  relation  to  God 
be  a  moral  or  personal  one,  so  that  I  am  justly 
capable  of  occupying  to  His  regard  as  well  as 
my  own  an  attitude  of  merit  and  demerit,  it  can 
only  be  because  the  moral  force  in  me,  or  senti- 
ment of  selfhood,  is  absolute  or  underived ; 
since  manifestly  if  my  selfhood  were  derived 
from  God,  it  could  not  with  propriety  appropri- 
ate good  and  evil  to  itself,  or  hold  itself  amena- 
ble to  His  praise  and  blame.  But  any  such 
insane  pretension  as  this  is  effectually  refuted  by 
the  whole  tenor  of  history,  by  the  whole  march 
of  the  Divine  Providence  on  earth,  which  shows 
the  merely  physical  and  moral  consciousness  of 
man  to  be  rapidly  and  inevitably  merging  in  his 
social  and  aesthetic  consciousness. 

The  error  is  still  more  luminously,  although 
more  compendiously,  refuted  to  the  religious 
mind  on  the  face  of  Revelation  itself,  every 
feature  of  which  goes  to  avouch  the  pride  of 
morality  or  selfhood  in  man  as  the  sole  enemy 
of  God's  righteousness  on  earth.  The  aim  of 
all  true  religion,  of  all  Divine  revelation,  from 
the  beginning  of  time,  has  been  to  abase  the 
pride  of  the  human  heart,  by  prostrating  all 
those  futile  distinctions  which  men  laboriously 
erect  and  cherish  among  themselves,  and  reduc- 
ing them  to  the  same  dead  level  of  unmixed 
dependence  on  the  sheer  Divine  mercy.     Every 


to  undermine  human  Virtue.  171 

great  primitive  creed  of  the  earth  is  imbued 
with  this  spirit,  however  feebly  they  who  name 
themselves  after  these  creeds  reflect  it.  The 
swarming  sects  which  have  sprouted  from  these 
great  primitive  roots,  have  lost  all  savor  of  their 
spiritual  beginnings,  and  are  no  more  to  be  con- 
founded with  the  parent  substance  in  any  case, 
than  so  many  mites  are  to  be  confounded  with 
the  wholesome  original  cheese  out  of  whose  dis- 
solute carcass  they  spring.  Sectarian  testimony 
is  very  nearly  worthless  in  so  serious  an  inquest  as 
this,  because  sectarianism  is  always  a  mere  reac- 
tion against  some  established  intellectual  tyranny, 
and  has  at  best  some  transient  ecclesiastical  or 
political  emancipation  in  view.  No  intelligent 
student  of  history  would  accept  as  a  priori  prob- 
able a  Jew's  estimate  of  the  spirit  of  Moses,  a 
churchman's  estimate  of  the  spirit  of  Christ,  a 
Buddhist's  estimate  of  the  spirit  of  Buddha,  sim- 
plv  because  the  original  spirit  of  these  majestic 
dispensations  has  been  completely  obscured  in  the 
bosom  of  their  disciples  under  a  frivolous  Phari- 
saic zeal  for  the  interests  of  the  letter :  so  that 
whatsoever  was  grandly  human  and  generous  in 
the  primitive  dogma  becomes  in  the  commen- 
tary personal  and  mean.  History  however  teaches 
us  that  the  aim  of  all  authentic  Revelation  has 
been  to  destroy  human  pride  and  covetousness 
by  denying  human  virtue,  that  purely  finite  vir- 
tue which  springs  out  of  the  conflict  of  good 
and  evil  in  human  nature,  and  is  the  source  of 
all  our  spiritual  arrogance  rapacity  and  unclean- 
ness. 


172       Redemption  the  Secret  of  Creation. 

At  all  events,  and  this  is  what  we  are  chiefly 
concerned  with,  Christianity  clearly  inherited 
this  beneficent  mission  from  Judaism,  and  at 
once  proceeded  to  reassert  it  with  so  sincere  an 
emphasis,  as  easily  to  insure  the  new  faith  the 
shaping  of  all  subsequent  human  history.  The 
Mosaic  revelation  was  based  upon  certain  tradi- 
tions which  had  been  handed  down  from  the 
earliest  ages,  in  which  the  great  laws  of  man's 
interior  or  spiritual  evolution  are  shadowed  forth 
under  the  forms  of  a  literal  creation,  fall,  and 
redemption,  with  a  mingled  fulness  and  concise- 
ness unparalleled  in  symbolic  literature.  But  it 
proceeded  to  erect  upon  this  traditional  basis  a 
doctrine  of  incomparable  philosophic  signifi- 
cance, in  which  the  universal  relation  of  man  to 
God  is  prefigured  with  an  exactness  level  to  a 
child's  understanding.  The  scope  of  the  Mosaic 
institutions  was  that  Jehovah,  or  the  self-exist- 
ent, who  revealed  Himself  under  that  title  to  the 
fathers  of  the  Jewish  people,  avouched  Himself 
the  true  God  only  by  giving  His  people  deliv- 
erance from  oppression  ;  only  by  redeeming 
them  from  bondage.  In  other  words  the  direct 
force  of  the  Mosaic  teaching  was,  that  redemp- 
tion is  the  measure  of  creation :  in  which  case, 
if  the  Jewish  God  create  the  race,  it  necessarily 
follows,  dropping  out  the  shadow  and  taking  up 
the  substance,  that  God  spiritually  creates  us  all 
only  in  so  far  as  He  first  gives  us  redemption 
from  the  evils  incident  to  our  natural  destitution. 
Here  for  the  first  time  in  history  the  great  truth 
of  the  Incarnation  peeps  forth,  and  peeps  forth 


^he  Conscience  of  Sin.  173 

moreover  in  the  very  largest  guise,  under  great 
national  characters  capable  of  being  read  after 
a  myriad  of  years'  interval.  It  only  needed  ac- 
cordingly the  illumination  of  Christ's  humane 
temper,  to  give  this  Jewish  letter  the  broadest 
spiritual  ratification,  by  showing  that  the  deliv- 
erance God  accomplishes  for  us  is  out  of  no 
Gentile  bondage  but  out  of  every  evil  most 
strictly  incident  to  human  nature  itself,  the  na- 
ture of  Jew  as  well  as  Roman.  In  short  all 
Christ's  teaching  implies  that  the  only  redemp- 
tion to  which  God  is  privy  in  our  behalf,  is  a 
spiritual  redemption,  a  redemption  from  our  very 
nature  itself,  which  conscience  when  fairly  en- 
lightened by  the  Divine  law  declares  to  be  full 
of  evil :  so  that  a  conscience  of  sin  in  the  votary 
became  thenceforth  the  unmistakable  badge  and 
evidence  of  God's  spiritual  presence  and  opera- 
tion in  his  bosom. 

This  conscience  of  sin,  in  fact,  which  is  the 
immemorial  flower  of  all  honest  religious  expe- 
rience, the  rich  ripe  fruit  of  all  devout  discipline 
and  culture,  will  well  repay  a  little  study  at  our 
hands.  How  does  the  reader  account  for  the 
fact  that  the  deepest  and  truest  religious  life  of 
the  race  should  bear  no  other  blossom  than  this 
conscience  of  sin  ?  Can  it  be  accounted  for  on 
the  popular  hypothesis  that  religion  furnishes  a 
direct  tie  between  God  and  his  worshipper  *?  Is 
it  not  far  better  accounted  for  on  the  hypothesis 
that  it  furnishes  only  a  negative  or  inverse  tie 
between  them ;  that  it  acts  at  best  as  a  hyphen 
uniting  them  indeed  but  only  by  previously  dis- 


174  ^i  i^  if^^'  ^^b   t"'^^  Fruit 

joining  them  ?  Vi  my  ritual  devotion  be  a 
thing  in  itself  acceptable  to  God,  1  cannot  see 
why  it  should  incessantly  bear  such  bitter  fruit. 
If  the  end  of  my  religious  culture  has  been  only 
to  convince  me  ever  more  and  more  deeply  of 
sin  towards  God  :  if  the  most  zealous  watchful- 
ness exerted  not  only  over  my  words  and  deeds 
but  over  my  secret  thoughts  and  affections  :  if 
prayer  pertinaciously  pursued  in  the  privacy  of 
my  own  closet  year  in  and  year  out,  the  prayer 
of  a  despairing  soul  in  hell  famished  for  one 
drop  of  the  water  of  Divine  forgiveness,  for  one 
fragrant  breath  of  God's  peace  and  righteous- 
ness :  if  the  profusest  almsgiving  and  the  most 
servile  conformity  to  the  narrowest  obligations 
of  religious  convention  :  if  all  these  things  I 
say  only  suffice  to  deepen  and  render  more 
desperate  this  damnable  conviction  of  my  in- 
dividual rottenness,  of  my  personal  alienation 
or  remoteness  from  God  :  then  clearly  it  seems 
to  me  that  one  of  two  conclusions  is  irresisti- 
ble; either  i.  that  I  have  been  all  this  while 
on  a  wholly  absurd  and  perverse  tack  in  my  ap- 
proaches to  God  ;  or  else  2.  that  God  is  a  being 
of  such  essential  obduracy  or  inhumanity,  as 
practically  to  ignore  the  usual  motives  of  our 
purest  and  least  selfish  action,  and  take  delight 
in  the  frenzied  sighs  and  tears  of  His  own  off- 
spring. 

But  here  again  some  one  will  object  saying 
"  No !  no !  you  mistake  the  case.  The  con- 
science of  sin  as  postulated  by  religion  in  every 
true  subject,  is  not  final,  is  not  demanded  for  its 


of  Religious  Culture.  ly^ 

own  sake,  but  in  order  strictly  to  give  the  sub- 
ject hope  towards  God,  that  is,  as  a  preliminary 
condition  of  the  Divine  favor." 

I  understand  the  objection  fully.  Let  me 
make  sure  that  the  objector  himself  understand 
it  equally  well. 

Does  the  objector  mean  to  say  then,  when  he 
alleges  my  conviction  of  sin  as  a  preliminary 
condition  of  the  Divine  favor,  that  the  Divine 
favor  towards  me  is  moved  or  motived  by  that 
conviction  upon  my  part  ^  Does  he  mean  to 
say  that  the  Divine  complacency  in  me  is  actu- 
ally prompted  by  my  becoming  convinced  of 
sin  towards  Him '?  Yes  *?  Then  let  me  ask 
another  question.  Is  the  conviction  of  sin 
which  I  feel  a  real  conviction  ;  or  is  it  a  mere 
dramatic  one  conceived  in  the  interests  of  God's 
subsequent  mercy  ?  Is  it  a  great  and  terrible 
reality,  accurately  reflecting  the  truth  of  things 
as  far  as  it  goes  ^  Or  is  it  a  mere  exaction  of 
the  religious  drama,  a  simulated  or  artificial  state 
of  feeling  enforced  upon  the  dramatis  persoruz 
with  a  view  solely  to  increase  the  iclat  of  the 
catastrophe  ? 

If  the  objector  affirm  the  former  alternative, 
he  at  once  denies  what  he  calls  the  Divine  holi- 
ness, meaning  thereby  God's  abhorrence  of  sin. 
I  could  easily  conceive  —  supposing  God  to 
have  the  personal  abhorrence  of  sin  which  the 
objector  attributes  to  Him  —  how  He  might 
show  mercy  to  one  who  was  really  an  evil-doer, 
but  yet  had  no  self-condemnation  therefor :  be- 
cause  He  would  forfeit  no  prestige  in   such  a 


176  Is  the  Conscience  of  Sin 

man's  eyes  by  heaping  him  up  with  kindness. 
But  so  long  as  I  not  only  am  a  sinner,  but  have 
the  deepest  conviction  ot  the  fact,  feeling  myself 
put  thereby  to  an  endless  distance  from  God, 
God's  holiness  it  appears  to  me  becomes  above 
all  things  bound  to  respect  my  convictions,  and 
do  nothing  to  impair  or  deface  them,  under  pen- 
alty of  forever  forfeiting  my  regard.  Whatever 
He  might  do  towards  one  who  was  actually  ig- 
norant of  the  relation  between  them,  my  intense 
knowledge  of  that  relation  forbids  His  drawing 
nigh  to  me  in  mercy,  without  shocking  my  be- 
hef  in  Him  beyond  all  recovery.  Does  not  the 
objector  see  how  childish  a  contradiction  he  is 
guilty  of^  when  he  thus  insists  upon  God's  per- 
sonal hatred  of  sin,  and  yet  paints  Him  blessing 
the  sinner  most  amply  at  the  very  moment  when 
the  latter's  conviction  of  unworthiness  to  be 
blessed  is  most  intense  and  truthful?  Absurdity 
can  go  no  further,  attains  in  fact  its  sabbath,  in 
thus  making  God  deliberately  violate  those  laws 
of  rationality  which  constitute  His  fundamental 
abode  in  us. 

If  on  the  other  hand  the  objector  affirm  the 
latter  alternative,  and  say  that  our  conviction 
of  sin  bears  no  relation  to  the  actual  truth  of 
things,  but  is  demanded  simply  by  the  exigencies 
of  the  Divine  mercy  which  otherwise  could  get 
no  purchase  upon  our  regard  ;  that  it  grows  out 
of  a  mere  transient  hiding  of  His  face  on  God's 
part  from  the  soul  He  is  going  to  bless,  with  no 
touch  of  reality  about  it,  being  in  fact  a  mere 
arbitrary  and  enforced  reduction  of  the  soul  to 


1 


Real  or  Dramatic  ?  1 77 

despair,  with  a  view  to  enhance  the  lustre  of 
God's  approaching  mercy  :  then  clearly  the  ob- 
jector sinks  religion  to  the  level  of  a  vulgar 
nursery  farce,  and  degrades  the  adorable  Name 
to  a  traffic  in  deceptions  so  paltry,  to  a  habit  of 
egotism  so  refined  and  remorseless,  that  any 
half-breed  savage  might  be  expected  to  shy  at 
them. 

And  yet  this  is  the  precise  practical  attitude 
of  the  church  upon  all  this  question.  She  does 
in  words  affirm  the  Christian  redemption  of 
human  nature,  but  she  makes  this  redemption 
perfectly  inoperative  towards  the  sinner,  save  in 
so  far  as  he  becomes  qualified  for  it  by  some 
underhand  dealing  of  the  Divine  spirit  with 
him,  issuing  in  this  conviction  of  sin.  It  is  not 
the  sinner  q^ud  a  sinner  who  ever  experiences  the 
Divine  clemency ;  but  only  the  sinner  who  is 
favorably  differenced  from  other  sinners  by  some 
sly  dishonest  operation  of  the  Divine  spirit  in  his 
bosom  disposing  him  to  appreciate  and  solicit  it. 
The  whole  truth  of  Christ's  redemption  is  thus 
turned  into  a  stupendous  sham,  and  God's  stain- 
less mercy  which  has  no  respect  but  to  the  need 
of  His  creatures,  and  above  all  their  unfelt  need, 
is  converted  into  a  paltry  self-seeking,  into  a 
contemptible  solicitude  for  His  own  aggrandize- 
ment. We  occasionally  indict  our  mock-auc- 
tions as  nuisances,  because  they  swindle  the 
public  into  the  purchase  of  stuffed  watches. 
But  our  bogus  theologians  who  systematically 
convert  the  fine  gold  of  the  gospel  into  glitter- 
ing tinsel,  and  sell  it  for  lucre,  occupy  the  high- 


178  The  Se^arian  Fiew  intolerable. 

est  seats  in  our  synagogues,  receive  the  pro- 
foundest  greetings  in  our  market  places,  and 
are  devoutly  called  of  men  Rabbi !   Rabbi ! 

I  deny  this  pinchbeck  evangel  in  toto.  It  is 
an  outrage  and  an  insult  to  all  goodness  and 
truth.  So  far  as  it  becomes  a  working-principle 
in  us,  a  principle  of  life  or  action,  it  turns  us 
intellectually  into  idiots,  and  paralyzes  every 
generous  throb  of  our  bosoms.  And  surely 
that  cannot  be  a  Divine  truth  whose  legitimate 
tendency  is  to  soften  the  brain  and  harden  the 
heart.  Creation  is  not  a  Divine  make-believe, 
nor  is  God  the  supreme  charlatan  that  so 
many  devout  respectable  men  conceive  Him  to 
be.  Our  conviction  of  sin  is  not  a  pure  com- 
edy enacted  by  the  invisible  spirit  of  God  in 
our  bosoms,  and  intended  to  set  off  His  subse- 
quent great  mercy;  nor  is  redemption  in  general 
that  exquisitely  shallow  and  unveracious  per- 
formance which  our  best-accredited  theologians 
delight  to  make  it  appear.  On  the  contrary  it 
is  at  once  the  profoundest  and  the  sublimest  of 
truths;  the  profoundest,  because  it  calls  into 
vigorous  play  every  emotion,  every  affection, 
every  passion  of  the  heart,  clothing  it  indeed 
with  new  and  expansive  powers  to  all  eternity ; 
and  the  sublimest,  because  it  is  the  most  fertile 
also  in  intellectual  consequences,  putting  the 
mind  indeed  upon  a  career  of  endless  develop- 
ment. I  hope  I  shall  be  able  in  the  sequel  to 
justify  my  convictions  in  this  regard  to  my  read- 
er's intelligence.  In  the  mean  time  let  us  pursue 
the  topic  we  are  on  a  little  further,  in  order   to 


'The  Judgment  a  Spiritual  one.  179 

ascertain  if  we  can  the  philosophic  contents  of 
what  we  call  "a  conscience  of  sin." 

One  of  the  first  things  that  strikes  the  mind 
in  investigating  the  origin  of  the  mental  judg- 
ment which  we  denominate  "a  conscience  of 
sin,"  is  that  though  the  judgment  be  moral  in 
its  beginnings  (or  take  its  rise  in  a  lively  percep- 
tion of  some  wrong  actually  done)  it  soon  loses 
that  quality  and  becomes  altogether  spiritual. 
In  other  words,  it  is  matter  of  daily  observation 
that  a  genuine  conscience  of  sin,  or  sense  of 
self-condemnation,  is  out  of  all  ratio  to  the 
amount  of  evil  actually  done,  much  more  act- 
ually doing.  In  other  words  still,  we  all  know 
very  well  that  they  who  habitually  do  the  least 
evil  have  the  tenderest  consciences,  they  who  do 
the  most  the  bluntest  consciences. 

Now  this  fact  is  inexplicable  upon  any  other 
hypothesis  than  that  the  sense  of  sin  is  at  bottom 
only  a  tough  earthly  rudiment  and  root  of  spir- 
itual reverence  or  humility;  an  instinctive  cor- 
dial pre-sentiment,  rather  than  a  developed  intel- 
lectual sentiment,  of  the  awful  disproportion 
which  exists  between  the  all-good  and  His  de- 
pendent offspring.  It  is  a  crude  unhandsome 
germ,  a  coarse  earthly  mould  or  matrix,  of  that 
genial  modesty  or  inmost  grace  of  innocence 
which  is  the  soul  of  true  manhood,  and  keeps 
the  eternal  heavens  themselves  fresh  and  sweet. 
Hence  alone  it  is  that  as  we  have  just  seen,  the 
subject  ot  this  conviction  is  more  than  all  others 
averse  to  evil-doing,  and  teels  the  soil  of  an  evil 
thought,  provided  it  be  a  really  and  not  a  mere 


l8o  The  Philosophic  Contents 

conventionally  evil  one,  more  poignantly  than 
others  do  the  grossest  contact  of  literal  defile- 
ment. In  fact  one's  true  conviction  of  sin  is  so 
clearly  a  mark  of  interior  quickening,  of  ad- 
vanced and  advancing  spiritual  growth,  that  it 
is  always  sure  to  be  begotten  at  its  maturity  of 
a  hearty  disgust  ot  one's  religious  righteousness, 
instead  of  remorse  for  admitted  evil.  No  one 
has  begun  to  feel  a  spiritual  conviction  of  sin, 
who  does  not  perceive  himself  much  more  ab- 
horrent to  God  by  his  virtues  than  his  vices,  by 
his  piety  than  his  profligacy  :  so  that  we  may 
safely  describe  the  sinner  as  one,  who  having 
laboriously  tried  to  endue  himself  in  all  manner 
of  legal  or  popularly  accredited  righteousness, 
finds  it  a  garment  infinitely  scant  of  his  soul's 
demands ;  finds  it  a  garment  indeed,  like  the 
fig  leaves  in  Eden,  much  better  adapted  to  ex- 
pose his  spiritual  shanks  than  to  conceal  them. 

Let  us  clearly  make  up  our  minds  then  at  the 
outset,  that  a  very  great  distinction  obtains  be- 
tween the  conscience  of  criminality  and  the  con- 
science of  sin,  between  the  mere  doing  of  evil 
and  the  feeling  oneself  to  be  evil.  To  do  evil  is 
one  thing,  the  lowest  thing  a  man  can  do ;  to 
feel  oneself  a  sinner  is  a  totally  opposite  thing, 
is  indeed  the  height  of  a  man's  spiritual  achieve- 
ment, for  this  world  at  all  events.  To  do  evil 
is  the  heritage  of  every  man  of  woman  born. 
To  feel  a  conscience  of  sin  belongs  only  to 
those  who  are  also  spiritually  born,  born  from 
above  :  that  is  to  say,  belongs  only  to  those  in 
whom  a  nascent  sympathy  with  all  Divine  good- 


of  a  Conscience  of  Sin.  181 

ness  is  being  interiorly  and  invisibly  wrought. 
We  all  of  us  do  evil  by  virtue  of  our  Adamic 
generation ;  no  one  unaffectedly  feels  himself  to 
be  evil,  but  by  virtue  of  a  regeneration  to  which 
the  Adamic  or  carnal  principle  is  being  Divinely 
subjected  in  the  unseen  depths  of  his  mind.  In 
a  word  evil-doing  belongs  to  the  moral  sphere 
of  our  experience :  the  conscience  of  sin  to  the 
spiritual  sphere.  Evil-doing  is  a  prompting  of 
unregenerate  nature,  of  the  mind  still  in  bond- 
age to  sense.  Sin  is  always  a  judgment  of  the 
spiritual  mind,  the  mind  which  has  begun  to  be 
rationally  disengaged  from  sense.  The  two 
things  are  as  distinct  as  earth  and  heaven.  Men 
have  always  done  evil  by  the  simple  force  of 
nature,  as  easily  as  they  have  drunk  water.  No 
one  has  ever  really  reckoned  himself  a  sinner 
towards  God  but  by  a  force  altogether  superior 
to  nature,  a  Divine  force  which  is  urgent  to  re- 
deem him  from  nature  and  clothe  him  with  its 
own  proper  immortality.  So  that  we  may  say 
without  any  hesitation  that  while  all  of  us  do 
evil  naturally,  only  those  of  us  really  charge  our- 
selves with  sin  who  have  been  rendered  in- 
wardly averse  to  evil-doing  :  or  what  is  the 
same  thing,  have  been  spiritually  penetrated 
by  the  Divine  perfection,  and  quickened  in  its 
image. 

Now  these  two  most  distinct  things,  moral 
and  spiritual  existence,  are  so  assiduously  con- 
founded by  the  traditional  cant  of  the  church, 
that  no  doctrine  founded  on  their  essential  dis- 
crimination will  be  likely  to  receive  the  ready 


182  The  true  Confession  of  Sin 

assent  of  our  intelligence.  My  reader  must 
bear  with  me  therefore  while  I  seek  to  vindicate 
at  greater  length  the  distinction  I  have  already 
made,  and  rescue  its  enormous  evangelical  uses 
from  the  thorough  contempt  to  which  the 
church's  besotted  administration  of  sacred  things 
has  consigned  them.  We  are  habitually  taught 
by  her  inspiration  even  in  infancy  to  call  our- 
selves sinners  with  a  profuseness  of  indifference 
amounting  to  a  most  serious  travesty  and  profa- 
nation of  Divine  truth.  Go  into  any  of  our 
ordinary  revivalist  prayer-meetings,  and  you 
will  find  even  the  youngest  spokesman  dealing 
out  confessions  of  sin  so  rollicking  and  glib,  as  to 
denote  a  wholly  unsubdued  natural  force  within, 
and  avouch  themselves  a  mere  unprincipled 
parrotry  of  sacred  utterances.  The  natural  lust 
of  distinction  craves  no  sweeter  pasturage,  no 
subtler  gratification,  than  is  found  oftentimes  in 
these  conventionally  shaded  and  unsuspected 
places.  The  love  of  men's  approbation  is  such 
an  inveterate  sly-boots,  that  it  will  drive  us  to 
deck  ourselves  in  sackcloth  and  ashes,  if  the 
fashion  only  set  in  that  direction,  quite  as  gaily 
as  in  purple  and  fine  linen. 

The  true  confession  of  sin  is  never  a  verbal 
one  ;  much  less  a  public  one.  It  is  what  the 
contrite  heart,  the  heart  truly  touched  with  God's 
overpowering  love,  whispers  and  only  whispers, 
to  the  proud  uplifted  head,  in  order  to  humble 
it  to  the  dust.  It  comes  accordingly  with  the 
utmost  difficulty  to  one's  own  interior  ear,  and 
cannot  possibly  endure  to  publish  itself      I  do 


is  never  a  ritual  one.  183 

not  believe  such  a  thing  to  be  possible  as  a  sin- 
cere ritual  confession  of  sin.  I  do  not  believe 
that  any  Roman  Catholic  father-confessor  ever 
listened  to  such  a  confession.  They  no  doubt 
listen  often  enough  to  confessions  of  criminality; 
but  confessions  of  sin,  never.  That  conviction 
can  be  acknowledged  only  to  God  and  oneself. 
In  fact  the  confessional  does  its  best  to  defeat  the 
possibility  of  spiritual  life  in  the  penitent,  because 
it  perpetually  subjects  the  intercourse  between 
God  and  him,  which  is  nothing  if  not  private, 
to  its  own  profane  interference,  to  its  own  sordid 
mercantile  or  mediatorial  fumbling.  The  least 
genuine  conviction  of  sin,  or  what  is  the  same 
thing,  the  feeblest  dawn  of  spiritual  life,  opens 
one's  eyes  so  very  wide  to  the  truth  of  things 
between  universal  man  and  God,  that  the  priest- 
ly power  of  binding  and  loosing  tumbles  off  in- 
continently into  very  puerile  blasphemy :  and 
even  those  solemn  hortatory  and  precatory  dis- 
plays which  take  place  in  our  Protestant  sympo- 
sia, confess  themselves  a  mere  instinctive  effort 
of  the  aesthetic  faculty  to  realize  itself  under 
difficulties,  and  vindicate  its  coming  uses  in  the 
highest  spheres  of  thought.  A  spiritual  glimpse 
of  the  uncleanness  enclosed  in  one's  ritual  right- 
eousness, in  one's  conventional  respectability,  is 
by  no  means  a  festive  experience,  inspires  no 
volubility,  baffles  utterly  our  ordinarily  florid 
dramatic  capabilities.  It  is  in  truth  so  simply 
fatal  to  the  consecrated  egotism  of  the  heart, 
puts  on  so  withering  an  aspect  towards  every 
devout  and  skulking  form  of  selfish  aspiration, 


1 84  One's  Conscience  of  Sin  means 

as  to  make  the  love  of  a  humiliated  harlot,  and 
the  prostrate  guilt  of  a  woman  taken  in  the  act 
of  adultery,  comparatively  clean  and  innocent : 
infinitely  more  clean  and  innocent  indeed  to  the 
manly  bosom  and  therefore  to  the  Divine  bosom, 
than  all  the  sanctimonious  and  obscene  virtue 
that  ever  thrived  by  insulting  them. 

The  total  philosophic  worth  of  what  we  call 
a  conscience  of  sin,  consists  in  its  being  a  dis- 
covery by  the  private  soul  of  the  absolute 
equality  of  all  men  before  God,  and  of  the 
consequent  falsity  of  its  own  pretension  to  stand 
any  better  there  than  anybody  else  ;  even  this 
publican.  Of  course  no  man  can  feel  this  con- 
viction very  pungently,  who  has  not  previously 
felt  a  conviction  of  our  moral  or  differential 
righteousness  before  God,  and  striven  as  much 
as  possible  to  array  himself  in  it.  A  man  may 
have  long  had  a  conviction  of  criminality  tow- 
ards his  fellow-man,  may  have  consciously  for- 
feited his  fellow-man's  approbation ;  but  this 
does  not  constitute  a  conscience  of  sin  by  any 
means.  This  latter  is  a  feeling  in  one's  bosom 
of  one's  unlikeness  to  God,  the  source  of  one's 
life ;  a  sickening  sense  of  the  ineffable  smallness 
filthiness  and  self-seeking  of  all  sorts  that  are 
wrapped  up  in  one's  best  conventional  virtue ; 
and  hence  it  is  an  utter  destruction  of  one's  nat- 
ural pride  in  oneself.  The  mere  criminal  has 
no  such  feeling  as  this.  Indeed  the  man  who 
most  abounds  in  actual  injustice  to  his  fellow- 
man,  is  the  fullest  of  pride  in  himself,  and  the 
least  cognizant  of  his  total  unlikeness  to  God. 


his  worship  of  God's  Perfe^ion.  185' 

He  is  in  fact  a  God  to  himself,  and  cheerfully 
dispenses  with  any  other.  The  life  of  nature, 
the  mere  animal  life,  is  wholly  unsubdued  in 
such  a  man,  while  in  every  one  of  the  least 
spiritual  enlargement  it  has  begun  to  take  a 
wholly  secondary  place,  has  begun  in  fact  to  be 
very  painfully  depressed.  This  depressing  in- 
fluence which  the  conscience  of  sin  exerts  upon 
the  natural  life  of  its  subject,  is  logically  inev- 
itable to  the  experience,  because  the  experience 
he  is  actually  undergoing,  and  which  is  masked 
by  the  conscience  of  sin,  is  that  of  a  most  real 
interior  divorce  from  nature,  and  a  profound 
spiritual  acknowledgment  of  his  exclusively  Di- 
vine parentage.  In  other  words  it  is  only  a  liv- 
ing illustration  of  nature's  habitually  inverse  or 
topsy-turvy  way  of  reflecting  spiritual  truth. 
Nature  is  the  realm  of  the  finite,  and  is  there- 
fore of  course  and  always  the  exact  inversion 
of  the  infinite.  Where  the  one  says  life,  the 
other  must  necessarily  say  death.  Where  the 
one  says  light,  the  other  must  needs  say  dark- 
ness. Consequently  when  a  man  feeis  his  inmost 
heart  melting  by  the  Divine  compassion,  and 
the  foretaste  of  a  mercy  so  tender  as  to  withhold 
nothing  from  him,  his  native  sense  of  merit  in- 
stantly withers  away,  confesses  itself  the  direst 
spiritual  blasphemy,  and  leaves  him  no  choice 
but  to  cry,  God !  be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner ! 
his  base  natural  organs  being  incompetent  to 
attest  the  blissful  interior  access  of  life  in  any 
positive  worthy  way,  but  only  in  that  rude  neg- 
ative or  inverse  way. 


i86  //  pra^kally  declares  God's 

Thus  a  conviction  of  sin  is  nature's  inevita- 
ble confession  of  imbecility  in  presence  of  the 
Highest.     To  the  angelic  apprehension  natural 
death  signifies  resurrection  to  life,  because  the 
angel  sees  the  inner  side   of  the   phenomenon, 
we  who   are   still   in   the  flesh   the   outer  side. 
When  therefore  a  man  calls  himself  a  sinner, 
and  most  feels  himself  to  be  one,  we  are  to  look 
upon   those  expressions  and  that  experience  as 
brute  nature's  uncouth  and  obtuse  homage   to 
the  Lord's  presence  in  our  nature ;  by  no  means 
as  a  direct  or  worthy  manifestation  of  the  great 
spiritual  truth  itself.      iVhen  a  woman  is  in  trav- 
ail she  has  sorrow :  but  when  her  travail  is  over^ 
she  rejoices  that  a  man  is  born  into  the  world.     So 
precisely  if  we  were   once   out  of  nature,   we 
should  doubtless  speak  a  worthier  speech.     But 
so  long  as  we  have  only  natural  organs,  we  must 
needs  report  every  inner  accession  of  life  we  ex- 
perience in  these  broken  accents  of  natural  de- 
spair and  death:  or  else  be  wholly  misunderstood. 
No  one  in  such  a  case  has  the  least  intention  to 
intimate  that  God  feels  towards  him  the  same 
condemnation    he   feels    towards    himself      He 
knows    the    contrary.       He    knows    in    all    his 
bones  that  God  feels  infinitely  more  tenderness 
towards  him  than  He  feels    towards   Himselt  ; 
and  can  by  no  possibility  feel  otherwise  to  all 
eternity.     And  it   is  precisely  when  he   would 
express  his  panting  conviction  of  this   magna- 
nimity, that  all  he  already  knows  of  life  shriv- 
els   incontinently  into    death,    and    all   he    pos- 
sesses of  strength  converts  itself  spontaneously 


Goodness   to  be  beyond  Expression.       187 

into  corruption,  by  way  of  setting  forth  the  in- 
effable splendor  of  the  truth. 

This  is  the  short  and  sufficient  reason  why  all 
they  who  are  truly  right-minded  or  reconciled 
to  the  Divine  name,  feel  a  sleepless  conscience 
of  sin;  while  they  who  are  otherwise  minded, 
being  spiritually  as  full  of  self-righteousness  as 
an  t^^  is  full  of  meat,  enjoy  a  really  undisturbed 
conscience  towards  God  and  their  neighbor,  and 
fill  the  foolish  resounding  earth  with  the  equally 
fatiguing  din  of  their  piety  and  their  pence. 


CHAPTER    XL 

As  we  have  already  seen,  the  conscience  of 
sin,  though  it  bear  a  purely  spiritual  flower,  yet 
owns  a  moral  root.  That  is  to  say,  it  always 
originates  in  a  judgment  which  the  soul  passes 
upon  itself  for  having  actually  done  wrong. 
But  the  precise  mischief  which  I  lay  to  the 
charge  of  the  technical  church  is,  that  she  for- 
ever prevents  this  spiritual  efflorescence  in  the 
conscience  of  her  votaries,  by  persistently  inten- 
sifying their  moral  consciousness,  or  making 
what  is  purely  phenomenal  and  transitory  in 
experience,  dominate  what  alone  is  Divinely 
real  and  permanent.  Her  deepest  instincts  of 
self-preservation  bind  her  to  this  course  ;  bind 
her  to  perpetuate  the  prevalence  of  the  flesh 
over  the  spirit ;  bind  her  to  suppress  as  much  as 
possible  our  spiritual  development,  by  exacer- 
bating to  the  utmost  our  moral  consciousness. 
Why  should  this  be  so"? 

Let  me  repeat  the  question.  The  question 
is,  why  should  the  technical  church  be  so  much 
more  alert  to  inflame  the  sentiment  of  a  moral 
or  diff^erential  righteousness  among  men,  contin- 
gent upon  a  man's  phenomenally  free  activity, 
than  that  ot  a  spiritual  or  universal  righteous- 
ness, contingent  upon  God's  pure  mercy  ? 


'The  Church  offers  a  real  SanSfity.       l8c^ 

The  answer  is  not  far  to  seek.  For  the  spirit- 
ual man,  the  man  who  is  not  merely  convicted 
by  the  letter  of  the  law  of  doing  evil,  but  much 
more  deeply  convinced  by  its  spirit  of  being 
evil,  at  once  confesses  himself  hopeless ;  gives 
himself  up  to  a  sheer  dependence  upon  the  un- 
bought  Divine  mercy;  renounces  in  other  words 
all  reliance  upon  any  righteousness  short  of  that 
Divine  and  infinite  one  which  has  been  operated 
in  his  very  nature,  and  which  is  alone  attested 
by  the  Christian  truth;  and  laughs  a  laugh  con- 
sequently of  the  frankest  scorn  at  the  church's 
pretension  to  do  anything  more  than  typify  such 
a  righteousness;  laughs  a  laugh  in  fact  of  bound- 
less scorn  at  the  pretension  of  all  the  petty  priest- 
hoods and  all  the  petty  sabbaths  and  all  the 
petty  sacraments  and  all  the  petty  sanctities  of 
whatever  sort  since  time  began  and  until  time 
shall  end,  to  do  anything  more  than  most  faintly 
typify  such  a  righteousness. 

Now  the  church  claims  a  real  sanctity,  not  a 
typical  one ;  claims  to  be  itself  a  Divine  finality 
and  not  a  mere  means  to  an  end :  and  if  she 
did  not  she  would  be  obliged  to  fall  behind  the 
world  in  place  of  taking  precedence  of  it.  For 
the  world  is  a  Divine  reality  in  its  way,  and 
would  be  excessively  slow  to  postpone  itself  to 
anything  not  at  the  very  least  as  real.  At  all 
events  it  would  very  properly  hold  a  church 
which  should  admit  itself  to  be  of  a  purely 
figurative  efficacy  at  an  extremely  low  figure. 
There  is  accordingly  nothing  which  the  church 
so  instinctively  resents  as  this  imputation  of  a 


190  The  Church  lives  by  flattering 

mere  representative  worth,  of  a  purely  symbolic 
sanctity,  which  yet  is  all  that  the  spiritual  mind 
accords  it.  And  you  easily  perceive  therefore 
that  she  spontaneously  covets  no  such  recogni- 
tion, engenders  of  her  own  good-will  no  such 
offspring.  If  ever  she  opens  a  door  to  them, 
you  may  be  sure  it's  never  her  front  door  to 
admit  them,  but  only  her  back  door  to  let  them 
out.  She  of  course  does  her  best  and  most 
amiable  to  stifle  them  by  assimilation  before  she 
expels  them ;  but  finding  this  impracticable, 
she  contents  herself  with  heralding  them  as  in- 
fidel and  reprobate  to  the  mercenary  scent  of 
the  mongrel  gentlemen,  half-secular  half-religious, 
who  hang  upon  her  skirts,  and  do  her  dirty 
work,  whether  of  public  laudation  or  of  public 
defamation,  at  the  annual  tariff  of  two  dollars 
fifty  cents  to  lay  subscribers,  with  a  liberal  dis- 
count to  the  clergy. 

It  is  thus  only  the  moral  man  whom  the 
church  cares  to  deal  with ;  the  man  in  whom 
the  intensest  spiritual  destitution  is  concealed 
under  the  rankest  moral  plenty ;  the  man  who 
estimating  himself  solely  by  the  letter  or  sem- 
blance of  righteousness  is  as  yet  wholly  un- 
taught and  unchastened  of  its  spirit  or  sub- 
stance. This  man  is  still  alive,  is  still  unslain 
in  all  his  native  arrogance,  and  covets  nothing 
so  much  as  the  outward  or  public  consecration 
of  it.  And  this  the  church  yields  him  in  the 
frankest  and  fullest  measure,  in  exchange  for  his 
voluntary  submission  to  her.  He  rejoices  in  the 
church  consequently,  and  she  rejoices  even  more 


our  self-righteous  Listings .  191 

in  him.  For  while  she  fully  authenticates  the 
inmost  pride  of  his  heart  and  gives  it  a  Divine 
exequatur,  his  adhesion  alone  confers  upon  her 
that  precise  fig-leaf  of  justification  which  she 
needs  to  shield  her  nakedness  from  carnal  eyes, 
and  to  permit  her  still  to  claim  the  unchallenged 
primacy  of  the  world.  The  pretension  of  the 
church  either  to  the  reverence  or  the  revenues 
of  the  world  would  be  preposterous  even  to  her 
own  eyes,  if  it  were  not  backed  by  at  least  some 
semblance  of  use.  And  the  semblance  of  use 
which  the  church  enacts  is  that  of  sanctifying, 
or  separating  to  God,  the  worldling  who  publicly 
professes  religion,  or  publicly  confesses  his  sins. 
The  churchman,  or  sanctified  worldling,  differs 
from  the  still  unsanctified  one  in  absolutely  no 
other  respect  than  this,  that  the  one  makes  a 
public  profession  of  religion,  which  is  a  public 
confession  of  sin :  the  other  does  not.  In  all 
private  respects  they  are  so  perfectly  one,  that 
the  church  is  never  weary  of  exhorting  and  per- 
suading the  still  unsanctified  worldling  to  come 
and  be  sanctified. 

We  may  say  then  that  the  direct  and  inevita- 
ble, though  most  undesigned  and  unconscious, 
influence  of  the  church  has  been  to  drug  the 
world's  conscience,  or  debauch  its  spiritual  fac- 
ulties, by  administering  to  it  this  adroit  opiate 
of  a  Divine  ratification  of  all  that  the  human 
heart  infolds  of  the  subtlest  selfishness  and  lust. 
For  of  course  the  man  who  at  her  instance  pub- 
licly confesses  his  sins,  would  be  the  last  of  men 
to  do  so,  if  she  were  going  to  condemn  him 


192  Moral  Righteousness  fatal 

therefor,  if  she  were  going  to  give  him  there- 
upon a  pubUc  reprobation  and  not  the  profusest 
public  absolution.  The  only  man  who  can  sin- 
cerely afford  to  have  his  evil-deeds  condemned 
by  others,  is  he  who  first  condemns  himself;  is 
the  man  in  whom  self-love  has  learned  to  yield 
the  pas  to  neighborly  love ;  in  whom  the  subtler 
consciousness  of  evil-being  has  utterly  consumed 
the  grosser  consciousness  of  evil-doing.  It  is 
the  spiritual  man  in  short ;  the  man  whom  a 
sincere  self-contempt  renders  perfectly  indiffer- 
ent to  the  contempt  of  other  men  ;  the  man  in 
whom  the  growth  of  a  genuine  humility  ex- 
hausts that  puerile  pride  of  morality,  or  self- 
hood, which  is  the  sole  source  of  evil-doing. 
And  every  such  man  of  course,  having  neither 
the  expectation  nor  the  desire  of  personal  ag- 
grandizement, is  heartily  indifferent  alike  to  the 
church's  benison  and  malison. 

Not  so  the  moral  man,  the  man  who  is  still 
in  the  vivid  green  of  life's  spring.  He  burns 
with  the  desire  of  commending  himself  to  the 
Divine  regard ;  craves  nothing  so  intensely  as 
God's  approbation  upon  his  personal  character; 
aspires  to  nothing  so  much  as  to  realize  every 
signal  mark  of  God's  personal  favor  and  delight. 
In  truth  every  such  man  still  revels  in  the  heyday 
and  delirium  of  self-love ;  and  he  would  see  the 
church  hanged  accordingly  before  he  would  ac- 
cept an  honest  scourging  at  her  hands ;  /.  e.  con- 
fess himself  a  sinner  at  the  risk  of  provoking 
her  faintest  frown,  at  the  risk  of  encountering 
anything    indeed  but  her  plenary  justification. 


to  spiritual  Innocence.  193 

This  the  church  yields  him  in  measure  pressed 
down,  heaped  up,  and  running  over,  proclaim- 
ing it  the  sum  of  all  righteousness,  the  one 
thing  needful  upon  earth,  the  most  acceptable 
and  best  requited  service  any  man  can  render  to 
God,  to  "  get  religion  "  as  it  is  vulgarly  termed ; 
/.  e.  publicly  identify  himself  with  the  interests 
of  the  church,  and  fulfil  her  requirements.  Ev- 
ery man  accordingly  in  whom  the  natural  loves 
of  self  and  the  world  so  overlay  his  spiritual 
perception  of  the  love  of  God  and  the  neigh- 
bor, as  to  permit  him  to  believe  that  the  most 
High  really  countenances  this  ecclesiastical 
trumpery,  really  connives  at  this  transparent 
whitening  of  sepulchres  and  making  clean  the 
mere  outside  of  the  platter,  to  the  extent  of 
pledging  His  immutable  truth  to  the  satisfac- 
tion of  such  grossly  personal  aims,  such  shame- 
lessly selfish  aspirations,  enters  her  courts  with 
joy :  and  is  there  very  sure,  unless  he  prove  an 
exceptional  person  and  listen  betimes  to  the  up- 
braidings  of  God's  spirit  within  him,  to  become 
tenfold  more  the  child  of  hell  than  he  was  origi- 
nally. 

Consider  well  what  I  say,  for  I  believe  it  is  a 
point  of  vital  importance  to  the  elucidation  of 
our  existing  intellectual  obscurities.  The  church 
leaves  her  votaries  more  stupidly  blind  to  the 
spiritual  depths  of  life  than  she  finds  them,  be- 
cause she  does  nothing  but  confirm  nature's 
fundamental  fallacy,  which  is_  that  we  stand 
primarily  related  to  God  not  as  a  race  but  as 
individuals,  that  is  to  say  morally,  rather  than 
13 


194  '^'^^  Church   an  Embodiment 

socially;  hence  that  all  the  data  of  our  moral 
consciousness  are  final  or  absolute,  excluding 
any  intrinsic  subserviency  to  ulterior  and  supe- 
rior social  and  aesthetic  issues.  Nature  teaches 
us,  and  the  church  emphasizes  the  lesson  with 
the  whole  force  of  her  lungs,  that  God's  true  re- 
lation to  us  is  a  moral  or  personal  one :  that  He 
loves  us  accordingly  when  we  do  well,  and  hates 
us  when  we  do  ill ;  loves  us  indeed  with  such 
absurd  unreasonable  partiality,  and  hates  us  with 
such  absurd  unreasonable  malignity,  that  He 
does  not  hesitate  to  bestow  upon  us  in  the  for- 
mer case  the  eternal  delights  of  heaven,  and 
will  not  be  bought  off  in  the  latter  case  from 
the  gratification  of  an  exquisite  revenge,  except 
by  some  altogether  extraordinary  concession  to 
His  self-love:  so  reducing  the  immaculate  Name 
below  the  level  of  any  brutal  and  bloody  des- 
pot; reducing  it  in  fact  to  something  very  like 
furious  idiocy. 

The  very  gravamen  of  our  native  ignorance 
and  imbecility,  is,  this  low  conception  we  enter- 
tain of  the  relation  between  us  and  God,  as 
being  not  a  wholly  creative  or  spiritual  one,  but 
a  strictly  moral  or  personal  one.  And  the  church 
keeps  up  her  dishonest  prestige  in  the  world  by 
diligently  fomenting  these  natural  prejudices  of 
ours  against  God,  teaching  us  to  look  upon 
Him  as  an  essentially  outward  and  therefore 
finite  power,  sustaining  the  most  intensely  literal 
and  personal  relations  to  us,  and  feeling  pre- 
cisely the  same  low  emotions  of  moral  or  vol- 
untary approbation  and  disapprobation  towards 


of  our  Sottishness  in  Divine  'Things.      195 

us,  as  we  feel  towards  ourselves  and  towards 
each  other.  For  example,  I  am  tempted  when 
young  and  immature  to  tell  a  lie  or  to  do  some 
other  evil  thing,  to  save  myself  from  punish- 
ment or  advance  myself  at  my  brother's  ex- 
pense. The  evil  is  pronounced  and  palpable, 
and  I  secretly  condemn  myself  for  it,  devoutly 
asking  God's  forgiveness.  Now  in  these  cir- 
cumstances what  does  the  church,  speaking  by 
my  parents  or  guardians,  do  for  my  intellect  ? 
Does  she  afford  me  the  least  hint  of  anything 
involved  in  the  transaction  beyond  the  rupture 
of  a  purely  personal  tie  between  me  and  God, 
beyond  the  infraction  of  a  merely  ?noral  obliga- 
tion ?  Not  a  whit.  She  leaves  the  relation 
between  us  precisely  as  she  finds  it,  that  is,  alto- 
gether actual  and  outward,  so  that  if  by  prayer 
or  other  personal  sacrifice  I  get  rid  of  a  whack 
at  His  powerful  hands,  I  shall  feel  myself^  to 
the  extent  of  her  influence  over  me,  absolved 
from  all  further  damage.  Our  basest  natural 
prepossessions  of  Divine  things  being  thus  au- 
thenticated by  her  unfaithful  stewardship,  our 
spiritual  faculties  of  course  remain  crippled, 
dwarfed,  and  distorted;  so  that  if  we  ever  do 
cease  to  regard  God  as  a  mere  unparalleled 
policeman  intent  on  catching  us  tripping,  and 
come  to  the  discernment  of  Him  as  a  tender 
father  burning  to  endue  us  in  His  own  spotless 
righteousness,  it  will  not  only  be  without  her 
help,  but  in  defiance  of  her  authority,  and  to 
the  consequent  discredit  of  our  own  good  name. 
What  has  been  the  consequence  to  the  church 


19^)  She  is  the  Refuge  a?id  Citadel 

herself  of  the  spiritual  fatuity  she  has  thus  re- 
duced us  to  ^  What  has  she  herself  gained  by 
thus  persistently  degrading  the  soul's  relation  to 
God  into  the  relation  of  an  evil-doer  to  a  po- 
liceman, of  a  poor  timorous  skulking  mouse  to 
an  all-accomplished  omnipotent  infallible  tab- 
by? Why,  she  encourages  every  sneak  of  a 
fellow  who  has  been  robbing  a  henroost,  and  is 
dismally  afraid  of  being  found  out,  to  snuggle 
unchallenged  up  to  the  very  altars  of  God ; 
while  they  to  whom  the  bare  thought  of  evil- 
doing  brings  disgust,  invite  at  best  her  distant 
recognition,  are  very  fortunate  indeed  if  they  do 
not  incur  her  decided  enmity.  God's  true  church 
on  earth  is  incapable  of  proving  a  refuge  for 
roguery;  it  is  a  refuge  only  for  those  to  whom 
roguery  is  an  impossible  thing.  The  evil-doer 
has  no  part  nor  lot  in  its  inheritance,  but  only 
the  man  who  is  inhibited  from  moral  or  actual 
defilement,  by  an  exclusively  inward  or  spiritual 
cleansing.  Yet  the  technical  church  has  so  ef- 
fectually debased  public  sentiment  on  this  entire 
subject,  has  so  completely  fixed  our  native  imbe- 
cility and  idiocy  in  Divine  things,  by  persistently 
exalting  the  demands  of  religion  above  the  de- 
mands of  life,  or  what  is  the  same  thing,  postpon- 
ing the  claims  of  human  society,  human  fellow- 
ship, human  equality,  human  brotherhood,  to  her 
own  claims,  that  what  we  now  recognize  as  the 
distinctively  "  religious  "  mind  has  at  last  got  to 
be  out  of  all  comparison  the  least  spiritual  mind 
of  the  day.  Talk  to  a  "  religious  "  man  of  what 
he  conceives  to  be  the  highest  themes,  and  you 


of  a  frenzied  Egotism  and  Unbelief.       1 97 

will  learn  to  your  astonishment  that  God  takes 
no  interest  in  universal  questions,  that  is,  in  those 
ceconomical,  political,  and  social  questions,  which 
interest  all  good  and  wise  men  in  proportion  to 
their  goodness  and  wisdom  ;  but  only  in  some 
piddling  private  question  of  the  "  salvation  "  of 
this  that  and  the  other  individual  soul :  such 
"  salvation  "  apparently  meaning  first  of  all  the 
deepest  possible  conviction  on  the  part  of  its 
subject,  that  he  is  exposed  to  extreme  personal 
danger  at  God's  hands ;  and  then  a  secondary 
persuasion  that  this  primary  conviction  has  gone 
far  enough  to  placate  the  Divine  animosity,  and 
turn  it  away  from  its  injurious  designs.  In 
other  words,  the  "  salvation  "  of  my  soul  accord- 
ing to  the  current  pulpit  orthodoxy,  amounts  in 
plain  English  and  when  stripped  of  its  euphuistic 
disguises  to  this  :  1.  the  utmost  possible  excita- 
tion of  my  lowest  and  most  selfish  fears  towards 
God ;  or  the  outbirth  of  a  distrust  towards  Him 
in  my  bosom  which  would  scandalize  a  Hotten- 
tot, and  is  able  to  justify  itself  only  on  the  hy- 
pothesis of  His  essential  inhumanity;  and  then 
2.  a  persuasion  that  these  base  fears  themselves 
have  proved  a  tribute  so  well-pleasing  to  God, 
as  to  constitute  a  righteous  basis  of  discrimina- 
tion for  Him  between  me  and  other  men,  and  a 
righteous  basis  of  hope  consequently  for  me  that 
I  at  least  shall  eventually  escape  His  vindictive 
judgments. 

Do  not  misunderstand  me.  I  have  no  desire 
to  deny,  on  the  contrary  I  am  particularly  de- 
lighted to  affirm,  that  there  are  numberless  per- 


198      There  are  very  many  in  the   Church 

sons  clerical  and  lay  within  the  bounds  of  the 
technical  church  who  are  spiritually  disaffected 
to  her  righteousness,  and  therefore  inwardly  un- 
touched by  her  plagues.  And  the  church  her- 
self will  be  very  sure  to  point  to  these  persons 
who  are  nominally  affiliated  to  her,  as  furnishing 
a  decisive  refutation  of  my  criticism.  But  the 
artifice  is  too  transparent  to  deceive.  I  have 
been  speaking  of  the  church  exclusively  in  her 
historic  aspect,  as  a  visible  institution  distinct 
from  the  State.  I  have  been  contemplating  re- 
ligion exclusively  as  a  separating  economy,  or 
in  those  features  which  give  her  formal  discrimi- 
nation from  "the  world."  That  a  very  Divine 
substance  underlies  this  form,  and  is  working 
itself  out  to  view  by  means  of  it,  I  am  not 
merely  eager  to  admit  but  am  prepared  to  de- 
monstrate in  due  time  and  place.  But  nothing 
can  be  more  opposed  than  substance  and  form  ; 
and  here  we  are  dealing  exclusively  with  the 
latter.  In  point  of  form  then,  or  so  far  as  her 
ritual  righteousness  is  concerned,  I  say  that  the 
church  authenticates  the  lowest  principles  of  hu- 
man nature,  and  was  intended  so  to  do.  No 
doubt  many  a  man  who  is  outwardly  religious 
or  embraced  in  the  church's  communion,  is  in- 
wardly void  of  a  separatist  (/.  e.  Pharisaic) 
spirit,  and  full  of  a  humane  one.  But  that  this 
is  in  spite  of  his  technical  "  religion "  and  not 
because  of  it.  in  defiance  of  his  church  and  not 
in  affiance  with  it,  is  abundantly  evident  from 
the  circumstance  that  such  men  are  always  re- 
garded with  more  or  less  distrust  by  their  eccle- 


IVho  are  not  of  the  Church.  199 

siastical  superiors,  with  a  certain  dread  lest  they 
identify  themselves  with  some  or  other  of  the 
"  unsanctified  "  reform  movements  of  the  world. 
And  then  again  it  must  be  said  of  certain  modi- 
fications of  the  church  form  itself  in  this  coun- 
try, the  Unitarian  and  Universalist  modifications 
especially,  that  at  bottom  they  evince  under  the 
name  of  the  church  such  a  complete  seculariza- 
tion of  it,  such  a  sheer  though  unconscious  be- 
trayal of  its  distinctive  temper,  and  such  a  Prov- 
idential moulding  of  it  at  last  to  the  promotion 
of  kindly  feeling  and  good  manners,  as  ought  in 
all  fairness  to  exempt  them  from  hostile  criti- 
cism. Unitarianism  and  Universalism  call  them- 
selves the  church,  but  then  it  is  the  church  in  an 
altogether  Pickwickian  sense  of  the  word,  or 
with  pretensions  so  affable  as  to  offend  nobody. 
They  cultivate  the  customary  sabbatical  sulks, 
or  try  to  look  as  decently  morose  on  their  way 
to  church  as  the  more  hardened  sects ;  but  in 
vain.  You  always  detect  a  deprecatory  wink 
underneath  that  restores  them  to  your  human 
sympathy,  and  turns  the  whole  performance  into 
mere  unconscious  mimicry,  into  pure  devout 
comedy.  Besides,  on  following  them  to  church, 
did  you  ever  hear  a  word  from  either  of  their 
pulpits  which  was  not  full  of  conciliation  to  all 
the  world,  or  which  the  most  sensitive  bonhomie 
could  reasonably  object  to  *? 

Admit  all  this  fifty  times  over :  it  does  not 
disprove  but  only  confirms  what  I  have  been 
all  along  saying  of  the  religious  temper  in  hu- 
manity when  regarded  in  itself,  and  divested  of 


200  The  Church  cannot  confer  both 

the  modification  it  is  daily  receiving  from  the 
sentiment  of  human  fellowship.  Admit  that 
there  are  many  tender  thoughtful  suffering  souls 
in  "  the  church,"  who  are  hungering  and  thirst- 
ing for  the  true  bread  and  true  water  of  life, 
who  are  pining  in  other  words  for  a  hving  right- 
eousness, and  who  consequently  feel,  though 
they  would  be  horrified  to  avow,  that  their 
ritual  righteousness  is  a  mockery  :  clearly  this 
fact  inures  not  to  the  church's  credit,  but  alto- 
gether to  her  discredit.  For  if  the  spiritual  man 
within  the  church  becomes  spiritual  not  by  cul- 
tivating her  distinctive  righteousness,  but  by  dis- 
carding it ;  not  by  shutting  up  his  sympathies  to 
her  communion,  but  by  giving  them  the  frankest 
expansion  in  every  sphere  of  human  need  :  then 
clearly  the  good  conferred  by  the  church  is  indi- 
rect not  direct,  stands  less  in  what  she  gives  than 
in  what  she  withholds.  In  other  words  the  dis- 
tinction which  ritual  religion  confers  upon  her 
votary  before  God,  is  purely  literal  or  formal, 
and  in  the  nature  of  things  therefore  cannot  be 
spiritual  or  substantial :  which  is  precisely  all 
that  I  myself  feel  concerned  to  say. 

The  logic  of  the  case  is  inexorable.  If  the 
church  have  any  valid  mission  whatever  to  sanc- 
tify or  set  apart  to  God  an  earthly  seed  (and  we 
shall  not  be  able  to  explain  the  grandly  leading 
part  she  has  played  in  history  on  any  feebler 
hypothesis)  she  must  do  it  in  one  of  two  ways: 
that  is,  by  giving  them  either  a  figurative  or  a 
real  consecration;  either  a  formal  or  a  substantial 
righteousness ;  a  purely  literal  or  else  a  purely 


a  Literal  and  a  Spiritual  San£fity.      20 1 

spiritual  sanctity.  She  cannot  do  both  ;  because 
form  and  substance,  letter  and  spirit,  have  noth- 
ing in  common,  or  admit  only  an  inverse  never 
a  direct  congruity.  They  correspond  of  course, 
but  only  by  inversion,  never  by  continuity ;  as 
the  shell  of  a  nut  corresponds  to  its  kernel,  or  a 
glove  to  the  hand.  The  reciprocal  integrity  of 
the  two  factors  is  conditioned  upon  their  un- 
swerving antagonism.  If  the  letter  of  truth 
were  ever  a  direct,  and  not  in  all  cases  an  in- 
verse, expression  of  its  spirit,  the  spirit  would 
be  swallowed  up  or  extinguished.  If  the  Di- 
vine life  in  me  (which  is  a  positive  quantity 
only  on  its  spiritual  side,  and  therefore  demands 
a  purely  negative  observance  on  its  literal  side, 
saying,  thou  shalt  not  do  this,  that,  or  the  other) 
should  seek  to  procure  itself  positive  external 
expression  as  well,  how  could  it  succeed?  What 
literal  act,  or  series  of  literal  acts,  could  posi- 
tively express  the  love  I  bear  my  wife,  my  child, 
my  friend,  my  fellow-man?  It  is  evident  that 
my  love  just  in  proportion  to  its  purity,  disclaims 
positive  attestation ;  permits  only  a  negative  ex- 
pression ;  /.  e.  an  expression  which  consists  in 
the  abasement  of  my  self-love.  If  any  act,  or 
any  series  of  acts,  were  positively  or  adequately 
expressive  of  my  love,  they  would  exhaust  it, 
and  so  turn  it  into  aversion.  For  exhausted  love 
always  implies  aversion  to  the  object  that  has 
exhausted  it.  If  by  any  one  act  I  could  fully 
express,  /.  e.  satisfy,  the  affection  I  bear  my  wife, 
my  child,  my  friend,  my  neighbor,  my  next  act 
towards  them  would  logically  be  one  of  exter- 


202  iVhich  Alternative  does 

mination :  since,  my  affection  for  them  being  ex 
hypothesi  used  up  or  exhausted,  I  could  not  pos- 
sibly feel  any  other  sentiment  towards  them  but 
aversion.  Satisfied  affection  means  aversion. 
Affection  in  proportion  to  its  tenderness  or  vi- 
vacity seeks  a  perpetual  gratification :  /.  e.  de- 
sires to  be  unsatisfied.  The  very  life  of  it  lies 
in  seeking  and  never  accomplishing,^ 

Religion  is  bound  then  to  elect  between  these 
alternatives;  is  bound  to  choose  whether  she  will 
be  regarded  as  bestowing  a  purely  carnal  and 
therefore  representative  righteousness  upon  her 
children ;  or  a  purely  spiritual  and  therefore  real 
righteousness. 

If  she  choose  the  former  alternative,  she  of 
course  abdicates  her  own  supremacy,  vacates 
whatever  authority  she  has  hitherto  claimed,  sur- 
renders her  still  undiminished  theoretic  primacy 
to  the  State,  tumbles  off  at  once  in  short  into 
"  the  portion  of  weeds  and  outworn  faces." 
This  alternative  accordingly  is  not  to  be  thought 
of 

But  now  if  she  choose  the  latter  alternative, 
as  she  unquestionably  must  do  in  sheer  self-pres- 
ervation, then  she  of  necessity  makes  her  appeal 
to  that  thing  in  her  children  which  most  alien- 
ates them  from  God  and  all  Divine  ways,  name- 
ly, their  self-love,  their  pride  of  selfhood,  their 
moral  force;  and  so  perpetually  fans  in  their 
bosoms,  if  she  does  not  enkindle,  hell's  most 
subtle  most  genial  and  unsuspected  flame.  If 
my  religious  righteousness  be  a   real   one  ;     in 

1  See  Appendix,  Note  B. 


She  see  fit  to  choose  ?  203 

other  words,  if  the  distinction  of  religious  and 
profane  among  men  which  the  church  enacts 
be  a  valid  distinction  in  God's  sight :  then  un- 
questionably although  worldly  prudence,  or  the 
claims  of  Mammon,  may  forbid  me  overtly  to 
urge  the  distinction,  my  fidelity  to  my  own 
sincere  religious  convictions  will  commend  it 
all  the  more  warmly  to  my  private  or  spirit- 
ual regard  ;  so  that  practically  I  shall  find  my- 
self cultivating  whatever  aspirations,  desires, 
thoughts,  and  actions,  may  most  justify  the  dis- 
tinction, or  most  separate  me  from  my  neigh- 
bor :  which  is  only  saying  in  a  roundabout 
way,  that  I  shall  abandon  myself  to  the  sub- 
tlest illusions  of  self-love,  a  self-love  baptized 
with  God's  approbation  and  therefore  proof 
against  correction.  A  consecrated  self-love 
may  burn  with  an  inmost  tyranny  and  rapac- 
ity, and  yet  feel  itself  hardened  against  re- 
buke :  for  who  can  effectively  rebuke  what 
God  Plimself  has  approved*?  If  my  church- 
going,  my  public  and  private  devotions,  my 
reverence  for  sacred  times  and  places,  my  fasts, 
my  penitences,  my  abstinence  from  secular 
amusements,  my  zeal  for  the  interests  of  the 
church,  my  liberal  contributions  to  foreign  and 
domestic  missions,  to  the  spread  of  bibles  and 
tracts,  and  whatever  other  enterprises  the  church 
appoints  ;  be,  when  sincerely  carried  out,  a 
good  thing  in  God's  sight :  if  they  constitute 
a  basis  of  discrimination  in  His  sight  between 
me  and  other  men  who  are  utterly  indifferent 
to  such  things,  (and  that  they  do  so  every  pul- 


204  She  chooses  the  Latter. 

pit  in  the  land  assures  me,  and  what  is  more 
lives  by  assuring  me)  :  then  I  have  an  unde- 
niable right  to  rejoice  in  God's  personal  favor 
to  me,  in  His  distinguishing  grace  as  it  is  called; 
and  am  only  too  happy  to  welcome  a  gospel 
which  so  thoroughly  authenticates  all  my  native 
pride  and  lust  of  distinction. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

Our  true  righteousness,  the  righteousness  which 
God  Himself  operates  in  human  nature,  is  spir- 
itual not  moral.  It  consists  in  no  religious  ac- 
tivity whatever,  nor  in  any  activity  of  any  sort, 
but  altogether  in  a  spirit  of  unity  with  our 
brother,  in  a  temper  of  perfect  equality  or  fel- 
lowship between  man  and  man.-^  Our  moral 
experience  has  been  wholly  subordinate  to  this 
Divine  end.  Yet  the  church  habitually  miscon- 
ceives our  Providential  destiny  to  the  extent  of 
regarding  morality  as  itself  a  Divine  end,  and 
would  consequently  have  prolonged  the  contro- 
versy between  flesh  and  spirit  —  between  base 
and  superstructure  —  to  all  eternity,  if  the  secu- 
lar scientific  understanding  of  man  had  not  be- 
come Providentially  aroused  to  its  mission,  and 
assumed  to  itself  the  guardianship  of  our  asso- 
ciated destiny.  What  can  be  more  incongruous 
with  every  Divine  inspiration  —  what  can  be 
more  odious,  speaking  after  the  manner  of  men 
of  course,  to  the  Divine  mind  —  than  the  lesson 
which  the  church  habitually  inculcates  upon  the 
world,  namely :  the  paramount  claims  which  the 
interests  of  every  man's  own  personal  salvation 
at  God's  hands,  have  upon  his  attention  and  ac- 

1  See  Appendix,  Note  C. 


2o6         To  be  Saved  or  Damned  means, 

tivity?  What  can  more  fatally  degrade  the 
mind,  than  the  persuasion  so  diligently  fostered 
by  the  church,  that  God  Himself  is  privy  to 
these  paltry  personal  anxieties  of  ours,  accessory 
to  these  most  shabby  because  most  selfish  aspi- 
rations on  our  part ;  that  He  is  even  then  in 
fact  best  pleased  with  us,  when  our  concern  for 
ourselves  has  grown  so  importunate,  as  to  make 
us  shamelessly  indifferent  to  what  becomes  of 
other  men  *? 

Of  course  no  sane  man  can  help  cherishing 
the  liveliest  desire  to  grow  in  the  knowledge  of 
the  Divine  perfection,  and  livingly  to  illustrate 
it  in  the  tenor  of  his  own  personal  history.  In- 
deed no  sane  man,  if  we  use  the  word  sanity  in 
its  highest  sense,  can  help  the  endeavor  to  shape 
his  life  and  understanding  into  the  exactest  im- 
agery of  the  Divine  ;  nor  can  any  such  man  feel 
his  Godward  hope  enfeebled,  however  ragged 
meanwhile  his  religious  repute  may  be,  so  long 
as  this  aspiration  remains  unsmothered,  or  pre- 
serves its  ordinary  vivacity  to  his  own  conscious- 
ness. But  has  this  man  any  fear  about  the  sal- 
vation of  his  soul  ?  Has  he  especially  any  fear 
of  losing  it  through  the  inertness  or  indifference 
of  his  maker?  Has  he  above  all  any  dread  of 
his  future  well-being  becoming  compromised  by 
the  positive  ill-will  of  his  creator ;  by  the  senti- 
ment on  His  part  of  a  petty  malice  and  vindic- 
tiveness  which  would  disgrace  a  Choctaw?  Is 
the  soul  then  in  the  church's  estimation  a  thing, 
that  it  is  thus  liable  to  outward  chances,  as  the 
being  saved  or  lost  at  God's  arbitrary  pleasure? 


spiritually^  to  love  or  hate  our  Kind.     207 

I  thought  the  soul  meant  the  animating  temper 
or  spirit  of  one's  Hfe,  whether  one  of  conformity 
to  all  Divine  truth  and  loveliness,  or  of  aban- 
donment to  all  the  lusts  of  our  native  pride  and 
covetousness.  How  can  one's  soul  in  this  view 
be  either  lost  or  saved  without  one's  own  am- 
plest consent  ?  If  indeed  I  am  a  low-minded 
person  in  the  habitual  tenor  of  my  intercourse 
with  my  fellow-men :  that  is  to  say,  if  I  habitu- 
ally seek  myself  first  and  my  neighbor  last :  I 
shall  no  doubt  "  lose  my  soul  "  as  it  is  called ; 
but  it  will  clearly  be  by  my  own  privity,  and  in 
spite  of  any  amount  of  religious  righteousness  I 
may  have  incidentally  contracted  in  my  passage 
through  the  world.  And  if  I  am  a  pure-minded 
person  on  the  other  hand,  content  to  do  unto 
others  as  I  would  have  them  do  unto  me,  I  shall 
no  doubt  "  save  my  soul  "  as  it  is  called  ;  but  it 
will  by  no  means  be  a  salvation  of  it  from  any 
danger  it  encounters  at  God's  hands,  but  purely 
at  the  hands  of  my  own  presumptuous  self-will 
ignorance  and  wickedness. 

The  tap-root  of  every  one's  spiritual  character 
is  the  conception  he  entertains  of  God  :  not  the 
conception  which  he  inherits,  mind  you,  or  lazily 
accepts  at  the  hand  of  tradition  ;  but  that  which 
he  cultivates  and  cherishes ;  that  which  he  spon- 
taneously inclines  to.  If  he  really  conceive 
God  to  be  a  being  of  infinite  love ;  if  he  per- 
ceive that  God  is  God  and  worthy  of  our  spon- 
taneous adoration,  simply  because  His  love  for 
His  creatures  is  wholly  untainted  by  love  for 
Himself;  then  of  course  he  will  aim  at  a  spirit- 


2o8  The  tap-root  of  our  Chara^er 

ual  conformity  with  this  perfection,  and  abhor 
nothing  so  much  as  an  appeal  to  God's  inter- 
ested or  mercenary  regard.  Nothing  can  more 
revolt  a  mind  thus  enlightened  than  the  thought 
of  enjoying  a  blessedness  at  God's  hands,  which 
all  other  men  do  not  equally  share.  For  such  a 
man  worships  God  no  longer  religiously  but 
livingly,  no  longer  outwardly  but  inwardly,  hav- 
ing no  favors  to  ask  of  Him,  nor  any  possible 
bosom  aspect  towards  Him  which  is  not  as  de- 
void of  ulterior  design,  which  is  not  as  intrinsi- 
cally innocent  and  fragrant  with  an  inmost  wor- 
ship, as  the  bosom  aspect  of  the  lily  towards  the 
sun.  If  on  the  other  hand  he  conceive  God  to 
be  a  being  of  infinite  self-love,  and  consequently 
of  a  vindlctiveness  unmatched  by  man  or  devil : 
a  vindictiveness  indeed  so  incomparable  that 
hell's  eternal  torments  are  said  only  faintly  to 
express  its  ineffable  exhilaration,  its  insatiate 
gusto  and  greed :  then  of  course  his  own  an- 
swering self-love  will  become  so  preternaturally 
inflamed  by  the  insecurity  of  his  relation  to  a 
being  upon  whom  he  is  so  dependent,  and  who 
is  yet  so  essentially  unworthy  of  trust,  that  the 
demands  of  religion  will  necessarily  absorb  the 
attention  which  is  primarily  due  to  the  demands 
of  life,  and  the  envenomed  pursuit  of  his  own 
safety  leave  him  no  breathing-spell  of  regard  to 
bestow  upon  the  interests  of  his  neighbor. 

It  is  this  insane  root  of  self-seeking,  a  self- 
seeking  so  fanatical  as  not  to  rest  till  it  has 
bound  God  Himself  to  its  helpless  servitude, 
which  makes  the  distinctively  "  religious  "  mind 


is  our  Conception  of  God.  209 

everywhere  clothe  itself  with  such  unhandsome 
foliage,  everywhere  bring  forth  such  unmanly 
fruit.  These  results  "  leap  at  the  eyes "  in 
Catholic  countries  where  "  religion "  claims  an 
establishment  of  its  own,  unrestricted  as  in 
Protestant  countries  by  the  commixture  of  the 
secular  element ;  and  where  consequently  it  is 
at  liberty  to  ultimate  its  peculiar  instincts  in 
every  appropriate  sensible  form.  It  is  very 
curious  to  observe  accordingly  how  in  these 
countries  its  predominant  animus  of  selfishness 
betrays  itself,  in  the  dishonor  which  is  most 
religiously  cast  upon  the  procreative  faculty. 
The  church  declares  that  religion  has  no  prac- 
tical aim  but  to  save  the  soul  of  its  votary  alive 
for  another  world  than  this ;  that  it  has  no  pro- 
ductive uses  accordingly  in  this  world ;  and  that 
every  one  who  worthily  bears  its  name  should 
therefore  compel  himself  to  celibacy  :  thus  out- 
raging the  noblest  sentiment  of  our  nature,  that 
which  most  enshrines  the  creative  benignity 
since  it  furnishes  the  sole  foundation  of  the 
social  instinct,  namely,  the  chaste  reciprocal  love 
of  the  sexes :  and  driving  men  and  women  — 
for  nature  must  somehow  have  her  own  in 
everybody  —  either  to  dishonest  delights  which 
degrade  the  mind,  or  else  to  solitary  vices  which 
shatter  God's  living  temple  itself^  the  holy  hu- 
man body,^  It  shuts  up  the  sexes  each  by  itself 
in  great  dungeons  denominated  religious-houses, 
where  God's  shrinking  angels  overhear  nothing 
more  honest  than  the  sobs  of  heavenly  innocence 

1  See  Appendix,  Note  D. 


210  Ihe  unhandsome  Fruits 

tortured  into  guilt;  it  denaturalizes  all  true  man- 
hood in  its  monks,  by  making  their  aims  purely 
passive  and  personal ;  it  libels  all  true  woman- 
hood in  the  person  of  its  nuns,  by  turning  them 
from  fruitful  wives  and  mothers  into  barren 
professional  nurses  ;  it  clothes  both  monk  and 
nun  with  garments  revolting  to  sense  ;  and 
stamps  them  all  over  with  such  an  ostentatious 
desecration  of  the  body,  as  reveals  to  your  very 
senses  how  close  the  connection  is  between  spir- 
itual pride  within  the  bosom  —  the  pride  of  a 
peculiar  sanctity,  of  a  relation  to  God  unshared 
by  other  men  —  and  the  grossest  outward  car- 
nality. One  reconciles  himself  after  a  while  to 
the  sight  of  priest  and  monk  abroad :  for  we 
men  are  such  born  nuisances  as  yet  everywhere, 
especially  under  our  European  or  moral  form 
of  development,  which  exhibits  the  heart  or 
feminine  element  abjectly  servile  to  the  head  or 
masculine  element,  that  a  mere  ritual  righteous- 
ness would  seem  to  be  our  proper  badge,  the 
only  approximation  we  can  yet  make  to  God's 
image.  But  woman  when  exempted  from  our 
bedevilment,  when  loosed  from  our  gross  Adamic 
servitude,  and  left  to  herself,  to  her  own  sponta- 
neous tendencies,  is  gentle  and  modest  and  good : 
/.  e.  lives  already  and  does  not  merely  aspire  to 
live ;  obeys  a  direct  Divine  inspiration,  con- 
ceives of  the  holy  Ghost,  and  brings  forth  im- 
maculate fruit.  She  has  no  aptitude  for  ritual 
religion  save  as  a  way  of  escape  from  our  bru- 
tality, from  the  dreariness  we  impose  upon  her 
existence.       For  she    herself    when  freely  pro- 


of  Catholic  Religiosity.  2\  l 

nounced  is  truly  the  consummation  of  the  literal 
church,  the  end  of  all  the  culture  the  race  has 
undergone  on  earth  ;  perfect  womanhood  in 
nature  meaning  nothing  more  and  nothing  less 
than  the  visible  form  of  our  unseen  spiritual 
manhood.  Woman  is  the  normal  outcome  — 
at  once  perfect  flower  and  perfect  fruit  —  of 
human  progress  in  interior  invisible  realms  of 
being :  so  that  we  may  at  any  time  exactly 
measure  the  comparative  advance  of  the  public 
mind,  the  comparative  spirituality  of  the  public 
conscience,  by  the  esteem  it  accords  and  the 
courtesy  it  decrees  to  woman. 

The  commixture  of  the  secular  element  with 
the  "  religious  "  is  precisely  what  differences  the 
Protestant  evolution  of  religion  from  the  Cath- 
olic. The  two  churches  are  respectively  letter 
and  spirit,  body  and  soul,  root  and  stem,  seed 
and  flower :  which  is  what  makes  them  so  cor- 
dially inimical  to  each  other,  and  so  desirous  to 
get  out  of  each  other's  grasp.  The  Protestant 
church  germinates  in  Catholicism  ;  the  Catholic 
church  effloresces  in  Protestantism.  They  are 
respectively  gross  carnal  husk,  and  refined  spirit- 
ual fruit.  Thus  Catholicism  restricts  "  religion  " 
to  its  priests  and  other  emasculate  orders,  and 
allows  the  laity  no  nearness  to  God  but  what 
comes  through  their  intercession  ;  to  that  extent 
at  all  events  keeping  the  laity  humble  and  sweet, 
/.  e.  uncorroded  by  the  "  religious  "  virus,  or  the 
pretension  of  a  peculiar  sanctity  towards  God. 
And  Protestantism  does  nothing  hereupon  but 
deny   the   "  religious "  celibacy,    or   proceed  to 


212  The  subtler  but  more  harmful 

make  it  fruitful  by  marrying  it  to  the  secular 
life ;  so  in  effect  covering  the  whole  congrega- 
tion with  the  priestly  pretension,  and  turning  all 
that  was  before  humble  and  sweet  into  flatulent 
and  sour.^  In  the  Jewish  church  the  Lord  had 
respect  to  one  person,  to  him  who  was  of  a  con- 
trite spirit,  or  felt  himself  none  the  better  for 
the  national  holiness.  So  also  in  the  Catholic 
church  there  was  one  element  not  unlovely,  be- 
cause it  was  devoid  of  religious  pretension ;  and 
this  was  the  lay  element.  But  Protestantism 
logically  robs  the  Lord  even  of  this  delight,  by 
exalting  the  layman  into  the  clerk,  or  diffusing 
the  odor  of  sanctity  over  the  whole  congrega- 
tion :  so  reorganizing  between  herself  and  the 
world  the  self-same  odious  discrimination  which 
Catholicism  enacted  within  the  household  of 
faith,  or  between  priest  and  layman.  Catholi- 
cism stigmatizes  its  priest  alone  to  a  spiritual 
regard ;  stamps  the  man  who  separates  himself 
from  the  common  life  of  his  kind,  and  ostenta- 
tiously devotes  himself  to  God,  with  an  unlove- 
liness  palpable  even  to  sense  :  but  it  leaves  the 
great  common  life  untouched.  And  moreover 
it  allows  this  priest  himself  to  assume  only  an 
official  or  representative  holiness,  and  denies 
him  the  least  personal  consequence  :  so  leaving 
open  a  clean  door  of  escape  from  the  spiritual 
peril  involved  in  the  office,  to  every  one  whose 

1  It   is  obvious  of  course  that  ferent  to  the  ruling  spirit  of  the 

1   am   here   characterizing    these  church,  and  unhurt  by  it ;  though 

churchesas  to  their  logical  signifi-  unhappily  it  is  only  a  numerical, 

cance  only.  The  vast  majoritv  of  by  no  means  an  influential  ma- 

either  church  is  practically  indif-  jority. 


Fruits  of  Protestantism.  213 

cultivated  instincts  avert  them  from  it.  But 
Protestantism  remorselessly  obliterates  every 
vestige  of  this  original  Divine  mercy,  by  deny- 
ing the  discrimination  of  priest  and  layman,  and 
teaching  its  layman  indeed  to  aspire  to  a  sanc- 
tity to  which  the  Catholic  priest  theoretically 
makes  no  pretension,  a  direct  personal  sanctity 
in  the  last  degree  revolting  to  truth  and  de- 
cency. 

In  Protestant  countries  accordingly  you  miss 
those  gross  outward  and  therefore  comparatively 
harmless  fruits,  which  grow  out  of  the  separa- 
tion of  the  two  elements.  You  see  no  fat  lazy 
loafing  monks,  images  of  man's  essential  arro- 
gance and  imbecility :  no  starched  demure 
stealthy-paced  nuns,  images  of  the  lifeless  wom- 
anhood engendered  by  such  a  manhood  ;  a  man- 
hood that  robs  woman  of  her  native  juices, 
betrays  her  essential  conjugality,  falsifies  her 
rightful  maternity,  leaves  her  teeming  womb 
unquickened,  and  turns  the  stainless  nurture  of 
her  bosom  to  waste.^  You  see  rather  those 
subtler  interior  forms  of  evil  which  flow  from 
the  commixture  of  the  two  elements  while  as  yet 
such  commixture  is  regarded  as  itself  a  Divine 
finality,  or  is  not  seen  to  be  wholly  tributary  to 
ulterior  social  ends.    Protestant  men  and  women, 

1  The  nun  reproduces  Eve  al-  Eve  herself  in  her  undeveloped 

most  to  sight  in  her  rib-state,  or  or  rib-state    symbolizes   the   un- 

before  she  became  Divinely  qual-  quickened   selfhood   or   freedom 

ified  to  attract  the  man's  desire,  of  man,  its  condition  while  still 

It  is  curious  to  observe  how  me-  in  contented  vassalage  to  natural 

chanical   and  osseous   an  aspect  appetite  and  passion,  before  moral 

the  nun's   conventional  costume  consciousness  has  dawned, 
and    demeanor   impart    to    her. 


214  ^hen  the  Son  of  Man  cometh, 

those  who  have  any  official  or  social  consequence 
in  the  church,  are  apt  to  exhibit  a  high-flown 
religious  pride,  a  spiritual  flatulence  and  sour- 
ness of  stomach,  which  you  do  not  find  under 
the  Catholic  administration.  Get  over  the  visi- 
ble wall  of  separation  between  you  and  the 
priest,  between  you  and  the  religieuse  ;  get  be- 
neath the  serge  of  the  one  and  the  buckram  of 
the  other;  and  you  will  find  a  jolly  soul  of  man 
attuned  to  all  natural  fellowship  in  joy  or  grief; 
you  will  find  a  soft  womanly  heart  instinct  with 
conjugal  grace  and  maternal  tenderness.  But 
our  conspicuous  Protestant  religiosities  male  and 
female  —  such  of  them  as  are  really  animated 
by  the  spirit  of  Protestantism  —  are  sweeter  on 
the  surface  than  in  the  depths.  Their  moral 
fine-linen  disguises  any  amount  of  spiritual 
squalor.  For  they  believe  themselves  personally 
appreciable  to  the  Lord's  heart ;  make  the  cul- 
mination of  their  faith  to  consist  in  "  a  personal 
assurance  "  towards  God  or  confidence  of  accep- 
tance at  His  hands,  which  is  proof  against  all 
adverse  probabilities,  and  therefore  intensely  in- 
sulting to  more  modest  natures.  The  deeper 
you  descend  in  Protestantism  the  worse,  spir- 
itually considered,  do  you  find  its  logical  results; 
until  at  last  you  get  down  to  our  modern  Revi- 
valism, which  is  religion  stripped  of  its  last  rag 
of  modesty,  of  its  last  decorous  vestige  of  typi- 
cality, denuded  of  all  that  superb  spiritual  or 
universal  significance  which  once  inwardly  sanc- 
tified it,  and  reduced  to  a  grovelling  mercan- 
tile commerce    between  God   and  the  soul,  in- 


shall  He  find  Faith  on  the  Earth  ?       215 

expressibly  repugnant  to   the   spiritual  truth  of 
the  case. 

It  is  an  observation  very  frequently  made, 
that  the  least  nutritive  and  exhilarating  men  one 
encounters  anywhere  nowadays,  are  either  men 
of  office  in  the  technical  church,  or  else  of  emi- 
nence in  that  factitious  society  upon  which  the 
church  habitually  browses.  The  most  ungener- 
ous style  of  manhood  now  visible  to  a  spiritual 
regard,  seems  precisely  what  is  required  for  the 
highest  places  of  our  Zion  ;  men  who  suffocate 
God's  free  breathing  in  you  whenever  you  ap- 
proach them,  and  fairly  force  upon  you  the  con- 
viction that  professional  religion  —  whatever 
great  uses  once  redeemed  it  —  is  now  become 
fatal  to  all  humane  culture,  and  attractive  only 
to  the  vain,  the  frivolous,  the  despotic,  the  self- 
seeking.  I  know  perfectly  that  vast  numbers  in 
the  technical  church  do  not  spiritually  belong  to 
it,  and  no  more  dream  of  cherishing  an  eccle- 
siastical or  any  other  personal  claim  to  God's 
favor,  than  they  dream  of  renouncing  it.  But 
to  say  nothing  of  the  obvious  dislocation  which 
every  such  mind  when  much  in  earnest  about 
religious  things,  is  under  in  having  any  ecclesi- 
astical position;  to  say  nothing  of  the  inevitable 
conflict  and  anguish  every  such  mind  must  more 
or  less  reap  in  that  position  :  it  suffices  to  reflect 
that  such  persons,  like  similar  persons  every- 
where, are  what  they  are  only  by  virtue  of  the 
unimpeded  indwelling  of  God's  impartial  spirit ; 
thus  by  virtue  of  their  individual  exemption 
from  the  ecclesiastical  temper,  and  by  no  means 


2l6  The  Jew  and  the  Christian 

of  their  subjection  to  it.  The  church-spirit  is 
now  precisely  what  it  was  at  Christ's  Hteral  ad- 
vent, the  concentrated  spirit  of  hell  in  all  its 
true  votaries :  so  that  we  daily  see  the  truth  of 
Christ's  words  illustrated  on  every  hand,  when 
he  said  that  at  his  second  or  invisible  spiritual 
coming,  the  opposition  he  should  encounter 
would  be  not  from  the  world  but  from  the 
church :  from  those  who  having  always  been 
most  eager  to  cover  him  with  their  slavering 
personal  adulation,  while  they  were  utterly  re- 
creant to  his  spiritual  obedience,  would  gnash 
their  teeth  in  unaffected  rage,  at  finding  them- 
selves passed  by  and  the  technical  infidel  and 
worldling   welcomed. 

Yet  we  have  the  hardihood  to  talk  of  the 
Jew,  and  denounce  his  implacable  self-righteous- 
ness, his  implacable  animosity  to  Divine  things : 
as  if  the  true  Judsea,  the  only  Judsea  God  sees 
or  cares  about,  were  not  a  spiritual  country,  the 
Judaea  of  the  uncultivated  human  heart  whether 
nominally  Pagan  or  Christian.  The  true  5tw  in 
the  authentic  spiritual  sense  of  the  designation, 
is  to  be  found  skulking  in  every  most  baptized 
nook  and  cranny  of  our  orthodox  Christian  bo- 
soms; and  the  puny  crucifixion  to  which  his  car- 
nal prototype  subjected  the  Lord  of  life  in  the 
letter,  is  but  an  image  of  that  which  we  daily 
reenact  with  keener  cruelty  in  the  spirit.  The 
Jew  is  only  a  luminous  Providential  type  of  the 
universal  religious  conscience,  before  it  has  un- 
dergone the  softening  influence  of  history  ;  of 
that  proud   diabolic  temper  which   urges  every 


respectively  Type  and  Substance.         217 

man  of  strictly  ecclesiastical  lineage  and  nurture, 
to  make  much  of  the  flimsy  formal  peculiarities 
which  distinguish  him  from  other  men,  in  utter 
contempt  of  that  real  and  spiritual  destitution 
which  obliterates  these  superficial  differences, 
and  makes  him  profoundly  one  with  all  other 
men.  The  only  conscience  the  religious  man 
should  have  is  a  conscience  of  sin,  and  conse- 
quently of  unaffected  death  to  every  cherished 
personal  pretension.  He  in  whom  religion  has 
done  its  perfect  work,  or  fulfilled  its  errand  of 
death,  is  a  man  of  such  unforced  humility  as  to 
be  necessarily  full  of  generosity  towards  all 
other  men.  He  is  not  only  incapable  of  desir- 
ing, he  cannot  even  endure  any  evidence  of,  a 
tenderer  Divine  regard  towards  himself  than 
towards  the  veriest  reprobate  who  expiates  his 
crimes  on  the  gallows. 

Plain  as  all  this  is,  there  is  yet  no  genuine 
churchman  throughout  Christendom,  from  the 
pope  of  Rome  down  to  Brigham  Young,  who 
does  not  practically  reproduce  the  Jewish  infatu- 
ation ;  who  does  not  most  religiously  claim  an 
absolute  or  individual  consequence  in  God's 
sight ;  who  does  not  in  other  words  aspire  to 
win  God's  personal  notice  and  approbation. 
Our  religious  development  could  have  done 
us  no  harm,  if  we  had  only  borne  in  mind 
that  religion  was  never  intended  to  be  a  final- 
ity, but  at  best  only  an  exquisite  type  or 
mould  by  the  final  breaking  up  of  which  a 
very  real  life  of  man  would  emerge,  a  life  of 
genuine   fellowship    and  love  :    and  that  conse- 


2l8  Religion  is  now  the  Idol 

quently  whenever  it  was  valued  for  its  own 
sake  and  apart  from  this  most  human  use,  it 
would  become  an  unmixed  nuisance.  Yet  this 
is  precisely  what  the  church  has  brought  upon 
us.  A  religious  good  name,  the  admiration  of 
the  devout  world,  is  the  subtlest  remaining  lure 
that  hell  offers  to  human  vanity.  Many  a  man 
accordingly  who  wouldn't  give  the  toss  of  a 
copper  to  save  the  human  race  from  perdition, 
who  wouldn't  put  his  heel  where  his  toe  stands 
to  save  a  brother  from  the  gallows,  or  snatch  a 
sister  from  the  stews,  except  for  the  public  odium 
of  the  thing ;  yet  manifests  a  frenzied  zeal  and 
particularity  of  devout  observance,  which  would 
impoverish  the  soul  of  a  mouse.  We  are  so 
insanely  bent  on  securing  God's  favor  to  us  in- 
dividually, on  achieving  our  own  personal  sal- 
vation at  His  reluctant  hands,  that  we  have  no 
thought  or  credence  to  bestow  upon  his  great 
and  only  work,  which  is  that  of  our  common 
natural  redemption.  Our  insane  dread  of  God's 
personal  damnation,  our  insane  hope  of  His 
personal  salvation,  so  inflame  all  that  is  basest 
and  most  selfish  in  our  natures,  that  we  have  al- 
most no  faculty  left  for  comprehending  His  de- 
signs of  universal  love.  We  are  brutally  con- 
tent in  fact  to  let  the  whole  race  go  to  the  devil, 
provided  we  can  succeed  in  saving  our  own  pig- 
my souls  alive.  As  if  God  had  ever  proposed 
so  hopeless  a  labor  to  us !  As  if  He  had  ever 
set  us  individually  to  redeem  ourselves  from  our 
native  infirmity,  and  restore  our  hearts  a  pure 
offering  to  Him  !     On  the  contrary  He  invaria- 


of  Men's  impure  Devotion.  219 

bly  challenges  this  as  His  own  exclusive  prerog- 
ative, and  bids  us  behold  it  perfectly  vindicated 
in  the  splendors  of  Christ's  redemption.  He 
has  always  been  quite  rich  enough  to  do  without 
our  help,  and  our  sole  misery  has  been,  that  we 
have  so  twisted  religion  from  a  sincere  testimony 
of  this  truth  into  a  lying  witness  of  its  precise 
opposite,  that  we  are  now  sophisticated  appar- 
ently past  all  hope  of  recovery. 

Yes,  religion  is  now  become  the  idol  of  men's 
impure  devotion,  the  one  conventional  decency 
which  more  effectually  separates  man  from  God 
as  to  the  spirit  of  his  mind,  than  all  the  techni- 
cal vice  and  crime  extant.  The  pretension  of 
the  church  to  be  something  more  than  a  typical 
economy,  to  organize  in  fact  the  distinction  of 
sacred  and  profane  among  men  as  they  stand 
severally  related  to  her  interests,  and  give  it  the 
sanction  of  God's  approbation,  has  been  so  long 
unquestioned  as  to  render  a  spiritual  conviction 
of  sin  the  rarest  of  actual  accomplishments,  by 
leading  almost  all  men  to  believe  that  this  dis- 
tinction of  the  church  and  the  world  finds  its 
true  authentication  in  God's  infinite  perfection, 
rather  than  our  carnal  infirmity.  The  church 
everywhere  maintains  that  the  true  aim  of  relig- 
ion has  been  to  attest  a  difference  in  human  vir- 
tue, to  certify  that  certain  persons  are  purer  and 
better  in  God's  estimation  than  other  persons, 
and  will  enjoy  a  superior  felicity  at  His  hands. 
The  truth  is  most  exactly  and  intensely  contrary. 
The  total  religious  experience  of  the  race  has 
taken  place  in  the  interest  of  our  humility  not 


220  The  sole  Force  of  Religion 

of  our  pride.  The  whole  meaning  of  the  tech- 
nical church  on  earth  —  and  this  accounts  for 
the  very  limited  empire  it  has  had  —  has  been 
to  intensify  the  pretension  of  a  private  right- 
eousness among  men,  or  draw  it  out  in  great 
legible  characters  plain  to  every  sense,  in  order 
the  more  signally  to  explode  it,  by  proving  that 
there  is  absolutely  nothing  common  or  unclean 
in  humanity,  that  the  Divine  hand  hallows  what- 
soever it  touches.  Religion  was  never  intended 
to  give  its  followers  life  but  death ;  was  never 
intended  to  affirm  our  individual  wealth  but  our 
universal  penury.  It  was  intended  to  reveal  to 
them  the  dearth  of  life  they  have  in  themselves 
as  morally  or  finitely  constituted,  in  order  to 
prepare  them  for  that  fulness  of  life  they  shall 
find  in  each  other  as  socially  constituted.  The 
sole  office  of  the  church  has  been  the  perfect 
manifestation  of  the  evil  which  is  in  us  as  natu- 
rally begotten ;  in  order  to  our  adequate  appre- 
ciation of  that  infinite  good  which  shall  be  in 
us  as  Divinely  created.  Its  invariable  genuine 
function  has  been  so  to  stir  up  and  work  out  in 
visible  form  the  latent  pride  and  covetousness  of 
the  human  bosom,  that  we  should  be  compelled 
of  ourselves  to  loathe  and  renounce  them,  and  in 
that  sincere  way  become  fitted  for  our  eternal 
beatitude.  The  history  of  the  church  is  the  his- 
tory of  human  corruption;  and  the  only  emphatic 
testimony  it  bears  is  to  the  slender  reliance  which 
is  to  be  placed  upon  the  most  devout  pretensions. 
No  man  accordingly  is  in  so  dangerous  a  condi- 
tion spiritually,  or  with  reference  to  his  true  life, 


Purgative  not  Nutritive.  221 

as  he  who  finds  his  religion  a  comfort  to  him. 
Religion  is  essentially  a  state  of  dis-ease,  and  he 
to  whom  it  brings  repose  may  assure  himself 
that  the  root  of  the  matter  is  not  in  him.  The 
less  our  religion  satisfies  us,  the  more  it  mortifies 
and  vexes  us,  the  nearer  we  are  to  that  benign 
and  blessed  life  to  which  alone  it  is  destined  to 
minister.  The  end  of  all  religious  culture  is  so 
to  disgust  us  with  the  responsibility  of  our  own 
souls,  with  the  provision  of  our  own  righteous- 
ness, as  to  make  us  heartily  renounce  it,  and  ac- 
cept life  of  mere  mercy  at  God's  hands  instead. 
It  chases  our  selfishness  into  its  most  specious 
retreats;  it  ferrets  it  out  of  its  most  sanctified 
strong-holds ;  and  fills  us  at  length  with  so  cor- 
dial a  shame,  with  a  mind  so  full  of  repentance 
towards  the  patient  all  suffering  all  yielding  Love, 
that  the  natural  aristocracy  of  our  hearts,  —  their 
prevalent  lust  of  distinction  —  confesses  itself  the 
sheer  spiritual  vulgarity  it  is;  and  one  would 
henceforth  go  to  hell  rather  than  heaven,  unless  he 
could  go  there  upon  a  strictly  democratic  footing. 
To  say  the  whole  thing  in  one  word  :  the 
efficacy  of  religion  is  totally  and  intensely  pur- 
gative ;  and  he  who  insists  upon  finding  it  nu- 
tritive errs  from  the  way  of  life  altogether.  The 
most  living  men  in  history,  those  who  have 
evinced  the  profoundest  spiritual  quickening, 
have  felt  the  most  harrowing  and  pertinacious 
conscience  of  sin,  have  pungently  discerned  the 
hopeless  spiritual  rottenness  which  lay  concealed 
under  their  fairest  moral  and  religious  seeming. 
Such  men  accordingly  have  felt  the  imperious 


222  The  true  Enemy  of  God  is 

need  of  a  really  Divine  righteousness,  and  have 
spurned  the  empty  typicality  of  the  church 
whenever  she  has  pretended  to  appease  that 
immortal  want.  They  see  that  God's  quarrel 
is  never  with  the  obvious  and  conceded  evil  of 
mankind,  because  evil  ever  tends  by  its  own 
limitation  to  punish  and  correct  itself:  and  be- 
sides God's  sole  creative  delight  and  vocation 
is  to  redeem  men  out  of  their  admitted  evil  : 
but  only  with  its  most  unquestioned  and  estab- 
lished good.  The  true  enemy  of  God  from 
the  beginning  of  history  has  never  been  our 
poverty  but  our  wealth ;  has  never  been  our 
disease  but  our  health ;  has  never  been  our  sins 
but  always  our  most  unsuspected  and  accredited 
righteousness.  The  sinner  in  other  words  and 
not  the  saint  is  as  yet  God's  best  achievement 
in  human  nature :  when  this  achievement  be- 
comes somewhat  universalized  by  society  itself 
coming  to  the  consciousness  of  its  shortcom- 
ings, we  shall  at  last  have  a  righteousness  and 
a  health  and  a  wealth  which  shall  never  pass 
away,  which  shall  be  for  the  first  time  on  earth 
Divine  and  permanent.  The  sinner,  the  man 
who  most  feels  the  disproportion  which  nature 
puts  him  under  towards  God,  and  therefore 
best  appreciates  the  boundless  mercy  of  their 
spiritual  conjunction,  is  the  cordial  friend  of 
God,  is  unaffectedly  genial  and  easy  to  be  en- 
treated, lending  himself  freely  to  every  hu- 
mane enterprise  and  endeavor.  It  is  in  the 
heart  of  the  sullen  devotee  alone  that  you 
hear    the    gnawing    of    the    worm    that   never 


the  Saint  not  the  Sinner.  223 

dies,  the  worm  of  an  insatiate  spiritual  pride ; 
and  feel  the  heat  of  that  devouring  flame 
which  can  never  be  quenched,  the  flame  of 
an  ambition  so  aspiring  that  if  prudence  were 
not  painfully  imposed  upon  it  it  would  over- 
top the  throne  of  God  itself. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

No  one  can  know  better  than  myself  how 
exquisitely  revolting  to  our  professional  relig- 
ious pride,  all  the  preceding  strain  of  sentiment 
must  necessarily  appear.  But  then  we  must 
remember  that  our  current  religious  pride  is  the 
indisputable  inward  truth  of  which  the  Jew  was 
but  the  outward  visible  type;  the  profound  spir- 
itual substance  of  which  he  was  the  flimsy  nat- 
ural symbol  or  shadow.  We  exhibit  spiritually 
to  all  the  extent  of  the  ecclesiastical  temper  in 
us,  the  very  same  relation  to  the  Divine  Truth 
that  he  exhibited  literally ;  a  relation  of  pro- 
fessed zealous  allegiance  but  of  real  indifference 
and  hostility,  of  real  denial  and  betrayal.  We 
have  reached  the  climax  of  the  church's  spirit- 
ual history  prefigured  by  the  apostleship  of  Ju- 
das Iscariot :  for  all  the  personal  incidents  of 
Christ's  history  are  so  many  most  strict  types  or 
shadows  of  what  is  actually  transpiring  in  the 
unseen  depths  of  our  Christian  bosoms.  Thus 
the  literal  crucifixion  which  he  underwent  at 
the  hands  of  Jew  and  Roman,  only  typified  the 
spiritual  betrayal  and  crucifixion  his  truth  should 
undergo  at  the  hands  of  Christian  priests  and 
kings.  And  yet  even  as  this  literal  crucifixion 
was  the  sign  of  a  great  Divine  mercy  to  be  ac- 


God's  Kifigdom  to  come  on  Earth.        225 

complished  by  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  and  the 
consequent  spread  of  the  Christian  church  over 
the  whole  area  of  the  Roman  empire  :  so  now 
the  spiritual  crucifixion  which  the  truth  is  un- 
dergoing at  the  hands  of  the  church,  is  itself 
in  its  turn  but  the  harbinger  of  an  awful  and 
undreamt-of  Divine  mercy  to  the  world.  For 
this  infidelity  of  the  church  to  the  spirit  of  its 
Founder,  is  only  a  signal  Providential  demon- 
stration of  the  incompetency  of  the  mere  relig- 
ious conscience  spiritually  to  fulfil  the  Christian 
truth;  livingly  to  reflect  or  reproduce  the  Di- 
vine spirit ;  and  a  precious  pledge  therefore  of 
that  superb  resurrection  to  life  which  it  is  soon 
to  undergo  in  all  the  features  of  our  social  man- 
hood, in  all  the  forms  of  our  spontaneous  or 
aesthetic  activity. 

This  indeed  is  the  grand  burden  of  the  gos- 
pel :  the  establishment  of  God's  kingdom  on 
EARTH,  or  the  reduction  of  the  natural  mind 
itself  to  permanent  Divine  order :  because  this 
consummation  alone  as  we  shall  see  by  and  by 
guarantees  both  the  integrity  and  the  perma- 
nence of  the  spiritual  creation.  What  we  call 
a  conviction  of  sin  in  the  individual  mind  has 
had  no  other  end  than  to  pave  the  way  for  a 
similar  generalized  conviction  in  the  total  mind 
of  society.  The  dogma  of  individual  regenera- 
tion is  only  a  rude  imperfect  germ  and  prophecy 
of  the  higher  truth  of  our  universal  natural  re- 
generation in  the  Christ :  has  had  no  other  pur- 
pose than  temporarily  to  house  this  grander 
truth,  until  such  time  as  the  human  mind  should 
15 


226  Man  a  Microcosm  ; 

be  Providentially  ripe  to  receive  it.  And  the 
thing  now  most  incumbent  upon  all  those  who 
have  the  least  spiritual  discernment  of  Christ's 
work,  is  as  I  have  already  said,  to  revivify  and 
aggrandize  the  old  dogma  by  lifting  it  at  once 
out  of  its  wholly  lifeless  and  Pharisaic  private 
interpretation,  into  its  true  spiritual  scope  and 
dignity  in  application  to  the  race  exclusively. 

Whatsoever  is  true  of  the  individual  in  his 
degree,  is  true  of  the  race  in  its  degree.  Human 
society,  human  fellowship,  human  equality,  hu- 
man brotherhood,  which  constitutes  the  achieve- 
ment of  God's  spirit  in  our  nature,  or  the  per- 
fection of  man's  destiny  on  earth,  comes  about 
precisely  as  my  reader's  and  my  individual  re- 
generation does,  namely :  by  such  a  manifesta- 
tion to  men's  minds  of  the  evils  that  are  inci- 
dent to  our  rudimentary  unscientific  methods  of 
intercourse,  as  will  make  them  heartily  ashamed 
of  themselves,  heartily  sick  of  their  sacerdotal 
and  political  guides,  and  lead  them  eventually 
to  demand  what  are  those  Divine  laws  of  order 
for  man  in  nature,  which  shall  insure  us  pure 
souls  in  healthy  bodies.  The  seeming  obduracy 
of  the  heavens  to  our  suffering,  which  so  often 
strikes  us  with  amazement,  is  in  truth  but  the 
outward  form  of  the  Divinest  pity ;  because 
what  the  Divine  pity  wants  to  work  in  us  by 
permitting  us  this  acute  experience  of  evil 
physical  and  moral,  is  a  conviction  of  our  spir- 
itual rottenness,  or  the  humiliation  of  our  infer- 
nal pride  in  ourselves,  which  is  the  hidden  and 
sole  source  of  these  manifest  forms  of  evil,  and 


the  Cosmos  a  Grand  Man.  227 

which  has  only  got  to  be  recognized  in  order  to 
insure  their  eternal  drying  up.  Moral  and 
physical  evil  will  abound  and  increase  upon  us, 
until  we  learn  to  distrust  our  own  public  right- 
eousness, until  we  learn  to  scrutinize  the  spirit 
we  are  of  socially,  and  demand  whether  the 
cause  of  this  evil  is  not  in  our  prevalent  inhu- 
manity one  to  another  as  organized  in  our  boast- 
ed political  and  religious  institutions.  When 
we  are  thus  driven  to  explore  the  true  causes  of 
the  hideous  evils  we  are  undergoing,  we  shall 
at  once  get  rid  of  them  not  only  temporarily  but 
eternally ;  not  only  vacate  the  present  existence 
of  them,  but  put  away  all  possible  ground  of 
their  future  recurrence. 

Crime  vice  and  poverty  are  to  the  social  body, 
what  deafness  small-pox  and  the  loss  of  children 
are  to  me.  They  are  odious  disgusting  things, 
producing  the  utmost  possible  discomfort,  and 
leading  thoughtful  minds  to  inquire  their  mean- 
ing, to  demand  where  the  blame  of  them  lies. 
The  Lord  cannot  be  bribed  to  take  the  least 
interest  in  these  passing  troubles  any  more  than 
he  does  in  my  toothache  and  jaundice  ;  because 
what  He  yearns  for  in  both  cases  alike  is  not  our 
present  escape  from  evil  merely,  but  our  eternal 
exemption  from  all  liability  to  it.  How  does 
such  exemption  come  about  socially  %  Why  by 
society  itself  in  the  person  of  its  leading  minds 
feeling  the  precise  conviction,  acknowledging 
the  precise  conscience,  of  sin,  that  my  reader 
and  I  feel  and  acknowledge :  by  society  herself 
seriously  setting  out  to   do  justice   to   all    her 


228  The  Heart  of  Men  much 

members,  or  organizing  herself  in  strict  accord- 
ance with  the  truth  of  every  man's  equaHty  with 
every  other  man.  We  think  that  God  hates 
the  thief,  the  adulterer,  the  murderer,  and  ap- 
plauds us  decent  people  when  we  send  them  to 
prison  and  the  scaffold.  There  is  no  grosser 
superstition.  We  it  is  who,  spiritually  viewed, 
are  in  His  pure  sight  the  true  thieves  adulterers 
and  murderers;  because  we  in  our  overpowering 
lust  of  mammon  are  content  to  live  in  such  glar- 
ing relations  of  inequality  one  with  another,  as 
virtually  condemn  the  vast  majority  of  men 
to  degrading  want  and  ignorance,  and  lift  a 
smaller  class  into  idle  and  superfluous  abun- 
dance. Only  when  we  shall  be  brought  to 
view  ourselves  somewhat  in  this  light ;  only 
when  we  rich  and  reputable  ones  of  the  earth 
become,  through  the  ever  growing  tyranny  of 
these  atrocious  forms  of  disease  vice  and  crime 
quickened  to  perceive  our  own  complicity  in 
them,  and  humble  our  proud  heads  to  the  extent 
of  beseeching  science  to  tell  us  what  God's  so- 
cial requirements  in  human  nature  are  :  shall  we 
find  our  evils  abating,  and  our  long  dismal  night 
of  anguish  giving  way  to  the  beams  of  God's 
healing  and  eternal  day. 

Nothing  stands  in  the  way  of  this  great  con- 
summation, I  repeat,  but  the  persistent  dishonor 
which  our  hereditary  orthodoxy  does  the  Divine 
name,  in  belittling  His  mercy  to  the  dimensions 
of  the  mere  private  soul,  and  rendering  it  indif- 
ferent to  the  awful  wants  of  the  race.  Every- 
where  but   in   the   church  itself  you  find    men 


in  advance  of  their  Head.  229 

ready  to  perceive,  that  Christ  had  no  private 
personal  ends,  but  only  a  universal  one ;  which 
was  the  redemption  of  our  very  nature  itself 
from  disease  and  death.  The  Christian  facts, 
the  wondrous  words  and  deeds  ot  Christ,  so 
authenticate  and  inflame  the  generosity  and 
manliness  of  the  public  conscience,  as  to  make 
it  intolerable  for  us  any  longer  to  conceive  that 
God  looks  upon  any  portion  of  his  creation  as 
hopelessly  degraded  :  as  to  lead  us  in  fact  to 
suspect  that  what  we  with  our  finite  outward 
sense  see  to  be  positive  degradation.  He  with 
His  infinite  inner  eye  sees  to  be  so  much  nega- 
tive spiritual  advance.  One's  heart  revolts  from 
the  current  orthodoxy,  even  before  his  head  is 
able  to  justify  the  revolt  by  chapter  and  verse. 
I  am  sure  I  never  at  my  blindest  prayed  to  God 
half  so  earnestly  to  save  my  own  soul,  as  to  be 
saved  from  those  excruciating  thoughts  of  Him 
which  tempted  me  to  fear  that  anybody's  soul 
could  ever  lack  at  His  hands  all  the  succor  and 
furtherance  it  needed. 

At  any  rate  Christianity  is  a  full  response  to 
all  such  idle  fears.  It  bears  a  far  more  direct 
relation  to  the  public  life  of  man  than  to  the 
individual  one.  Its  whole  bearing  indeed  upon 
the  private  bosom,  is  a  fruit  of  its  bearing  upon 
the  destiny  of  the  race ;  and  is  strictly  unintelli- 
gible apart  fi-om  it.  The  doctrine  of  the  Divine 
Natural  Humanity,  or  of  Christ's  Divine  glori- 
fication down  to  his  actual  flesh  and  bones,  im- 
plies of  course  that  God's  great  redemption  is 
wrought  not  in  isolated  individual  minds  here 


230  Regeneration  is  possible  only 

and  there,  but  in  the  very  stuff  of  human  na- 
ture itself,  in  the  commonest  affections  appetites 
and  passions  of  universal  man  :  a  redeeming  re- 
generating and  transforming  work,  which  shall 
lift  all  mankind  into  intimate  and  endless  union 
with  God,  and  so  become  the  basis  of  a  new 
spiritual  development  in  the  individual  soul 
past  all  prophecy  to  foretell.  Every  church  on 
earth  is  doomed  to  perish,  except  the  Christian 
church ;  because  all  but  it  are  destitute  of  a 
philosophic  basis,  that  is,  profess  no  doctrine  of 
God  in  nature,  but  only  in  the  private  soul. 
The  Christian  church  is  immortal  because  its 
fundamental  dogma  involves  a  doctrine  of  God 
in  nature  so  ample  and  clear,  as  to  satisfy  every 
profoundest  want  of  the  heart  and  every  most 
urgent  demand  of  the  head  towards  God  for- 
ever. Christianity,  which  on  its  literal  side  is 
an  affirmation  of  the  perfect  union  of  the  Di- 
vine and  Human  natures  in  Christ,  means  on 
its  interior  spiritual  side  neither  more  nor  less 
than  this :  that  underneath  our  reviled  despised 
and  unhandsome  nature,  underneath  all  its  las- 
civiousness  and  avarice  and  tyrannous  self-seek- 
ing of  whatever  kind,  there  yet  lie  unsuspected 
such  capacities  of  disinterested  action,  of  jubi- 
lant self-abandonment,  of  cordial  devotion  to 
productive  use,  of  chaste  and  generous  love,  of 
magnanimous  friendship,  of  childlike  innocence 
and  peace  in  short  in  every  sphere  of  activity, 
as  will  make  all  that  men  have  feebly  dreamt 
of  heaven  yet  inevitable  upon  earth.  We  have 
long  agreed  that  God  was  capable  of  doing  very 


through  a  Redemption  of  Nature.         231 

wonderful  things  for  us  spiritually,  or  by  means 
of  our  strictly  individual  regeneration  :  but  we 
never  dared  to  suppose  that  this  was  only  be- 
cause He  was  capable  of  doing  so  much  more 
wonderful  things  for  our  nature.  And  yet  this 
is  the  exact  truth  of  the  case,  if  Christianity  be 
true,  which  suspends  our  individual  regeneration 
upon  our  acknowledgment  of  the  redemption  ef- 
fected by  Christ  in  our  nature.  "  The  regeneration 
of  a  man,"  says  Swedenborg  in  his  Coronis,  or 
Appendix  to  the  True  Christian  Religion,  "which 
is  his  liberation  from  evils  and  falsities,  is  a  par- 
ticular redemption  by  the  Lord,  existing  from 
his  general  redemption." 

But  Christianity  does  not  merely  tell  us  that 
God  is  able  and  willing  to  bring  nature  itself 
up  to  the  point  of  a  complete  redemption  from 
evil :  it  tells  us  that  this  redemption  is  already 
virtually  accomplished  in  the  life  of  Christ.  All 
the  events  of  Christ's  birth  life  death  and  resur- 
rection were  only  so  many  ultimate  tokens  or 
natural  effects  of  the  accomplishment  of  this 
great  result  in  interior  realms  of  being.  These 
events  all  took  place  in  nature  because  the  Di- 
vine Love  is  so  infinitely  able,  beyond  our  poor 
imagination  to  conceive,  to  reconcile  self-love 
and  brotherly  love,  or  hell  and  heaven,  in  the 
inmost  invisible  heart  of  the  race,  as  that  a  new 
LIFE  shall  thereby  take  place  on  earth  more  glo- 
rious to  God,  more  blessed  to  man,  than  it  has  en- 
tered into  the  heart  of  angel  or  of  seraph  to  con- 
ceive :  a  life  in  which  the  hitherto  despised  and 
rejected  principle  of  self-love  (evil  or  hell)  be- 


232  In  Christ  God  is  revealed 

comes  itself  the  invincible  guarantee  of  endless 
peace  and  order.  It  is  the  distinctive  splendor 
of  the  Christian  truth  that  it  alone  has  dared  to 
make  not  the  saint  but  the  sinner,  not  the  angel 
but  the  devil,  not  good  but  evil,  the  inexpug- 
nable bulwark  of  God's  power.  All  of  our  men- 
dicant theologies  and  philosophies  recoil  before 
this  ghastly  face  of  evil.  Only  that  patient  and 
faultless  life  begun  in  Bethlehem  and  ended  on 
Calvary,  tells  us  to  what  endless  human  worth, 
to  what  boundless  human  and  Divine  delight, 
the  existence  of  what  we  call  evil  is  in  God's 
great  unstinted  providence  spontaneously  sub- 
servient. Christ  was  born  subject  to  the  most 
diabolic  fanaticism  ever  enkindled  on  earth ;  the 
fanaticism  of  the  ^^w  in  behalf  of  a  kingdom 
of  God  which  should  put  all  nations  under  the 
Jewish  feet.  Of  course  like  every  child  he  be- 
lieved his  natural  traditions  with  unsuspecting 
confidence;  listened  devoutly  to  the  recorded 
promises  of  God  to  bless  Israel  and  Judah  with 
unheard  of  blessing ;  and  saw  himself  with 
childish  pleasure  pointed  to  by  all  about  him  as 
the  person  through  whom  these  long-waiting 
promises  were  to  be  at  last  fulfilled.  Put  your- 
self, reader,  in  that  tender  child's  place.  Would 
it  have  been  easy,  think  you,  to  have  resisted 
what  he  resisted  ?  To  have  spurned  from  your 
lip  the  brimming  cup  of  devout  intoxication 
which  he  spurned  from  his?  No  human  being, 
neither  parent  friend  nor  teacher,  stood  by  to 
help  him  in  those  dire  moments  against  his  own 
devout  patriotic  natural  heart.    Every  one  about 


as  a  glorified  Natural  Man.  233 

him  on  the  contrary  joyfully  sided  with  his  great 
temptation,  and  did  his  stupid  best  to  render  it 
irresistible.  It  was  a  temptation  more  subtle 
and  deadly,  more  heaped  up  pressed  down  and 
running  over  with  the  combined  and  concentrat- 
ed virus  both  of  heaven  and  hell,  than  ever  man 
before  or  since  confronted  ;  and  he  confronted 
it  all  alone.  He  stood  indeed  more  alone,  that 
is,  less  helped  by  human  sympathy  or  intelli- 
gence, than  any  man  ever  stood  in  human  his- 
tory, dazzled,  amazed,  confounded,  but  never 
overcome,  by  the  diabolic  lure  which  both  his 
religion  and  his  love  of  country  almost  irresisti- 
bly commended  to  him.  Every  subtlest  hell 
and  every  infirm  heaven  known  to  human  expe- 
rience, flowed  cordially  and  unrebuked  into  a 
personal  ambition  so  patriotic,  into  a  personal 
hope  and  aspiration  so  religious.  All  the  heaped 
up  avarice  of  the  human  heart,  all  its  aspirations 
of  religious  preeminence,  all  its  lust  of  spiritual 
and  material  aggrandizement,  all  its  cherished 
dreams  of  earthly  dominion,  of  wealth,  of  pleas- 
ure, of  sensual  bliss ;  all  its  instincts  of  love,  of 
friendship,  of  family  and  national  allegiance, 
rushed  headlong  into  the  fulfilment  of  a  career 
so  conventionally  blameless,  as  the  waters  of  in- 
land rivers  rush  headlong  into  the  sea :  but  that 
young  bosom,  though  it  sweat  blood  under  the 
unexampled  agony  of  its  conflict,  never  for  an 
instant  faltered,  until  it  had  so  perfectly  coordi- 
nated within  itself  the  hitherto  warring  powers 
of  self-love  and  brotherly  love  (or  the  profound- 
est  hell  and  the  highest  heaven)  with  each  other, 


234  ^^  Christ  our  Natural  Life 

and  then  reduced  them  both  to  the  equal  alle- 
giance of  the  Divine  or  universal  love,  as  to  lap 
them  both  thenceforth  in  eternal  unity  ;  and  give 
consequently  to  the  entire  spiritual  universe,  the 
universe  of  the  human  mind,  the  impress  of  his 
unitary  personality,  the  impress  of  a  glorified 
NATURAL  man. 

To  say  all  in  a  word.  God's  sole  great  pur- 
pose in  history  is  the  elevation  of  the  natural 
man  himself  out  of  the  mud  and  mire  of  his 
origin  ;  or  the  cleansing  and  building  up  of  our 
very  bodies  themselves  into  temples  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  so  that  they  will  no  longer  ob- 
struct but  only  promote  the  soul.  Christianity 
implies  above  all  things  else  a  life  of  innocence, 
of  spotless  innocence,  for  man  on  earth  :  the 
sooner  accordingly  we  take  our  brethren  out  of 
want  and  ignorance  by  giving  them  social  recog- 
nition and  so  restoring  them  to  God,  the  sooner 
we  shall  find  ourselves  enjoying  the  unspeaka- 
ble delights  of  God's  kingdom  upon  earth.  No 
man  does  evil  untempted  ;  that  is,  without  he 
have  all  other  men  to  help  him  do  it  by  stand- 
ing aloof  from  him,  or  leaving  him  in  abject 
penury  physical  moral  and  spiritual.  Let  us 
therefore  when  society  points  to  her  thieves  her 
adulterers  her  murderers,  saying  lo !  the  sinners  ! 
boldly  give  her  the  lie,  saying  :  "  What  does  all 
this  paltry  evil-doing  on  their  part  amount  to 
when  weighed  against  your  stupendous  and  un- 
conscious evil-being,  your  organized  and  spirit- 
ual inclemency  of  man  to  man  ?  These  men 
indeed  are  hideous  forms  of  evil-doers  ;  they  sin 


is  made   'Divinely  Innocent.  235 

flagrantly  against  your  conventions ;  but  it  is 
only  because  your  conventions  first  stint  their 
nature  of  its  fair  expansion,  deny  it  its  due  and 
honest  satisfactions.  You  are,  first  of  all,  a  nig- 
gard steward  to  them  of  Divine  bounties ;  and 
God's  quarrel  therefore  is  primarily  with  you 
and  only  indirectly  with  them." 

Our  hereditary  ecclesiastical  habits  of  mind 
however  have  left  us  so  little  spiritual  innocence, 
have  so  inflamed  us  with  mercenary  intentions 
towards  God,  so  armed  us  with  every  sneaking 
private  personal  design  upon  His  bounty,  that 
we  are  quite  as  blind  to  the  actual  truth  of 
things  as  our  Jewish  prototype  himself  was, 
and  find  ourselves  exposed  to  precisely  similar 
judgments.  Surely  no  nation  was  ever  more 
punctilious  in  its  purely  religious  worship  than 
ours  was  two  short  years  ago.  Yet  here  we  are 
to-day  politically  rent  and  peeled  as  by  the  light- 
ning of  a  Divine  displeasure.  What  is  the  in- 
ference ?  What  can  it  be  but  that  God  had  a 
just  disdain  of  our  hypocrisy,  of  our  complacent 
religious  comedy ;  that  He  saw  it  to  indicate  no 
living  sympathy  with  His  excellent  name  but 
only  a  zealous  desire  to  cajole  and  keep  Him 
quiet,  while  we  were  filling  our  felonious  pock- 
ets with  dollars  coined  out  of  the  sweat  and 
blood  of  His  and  our  helpless  ill-starred  breth- 
ren ?  What  a  scandal  it  is  to  Christianity,  that 
men  professing  for  nineteen  centuries  to  revere 
its  hallowed  memorials  concerning  God  and  our 
relations  to  Him,  should  yet  believe  Him  capa- 
ble of  occupying  Himself  with  this  ritual  rub- 


236  Our  religious  Life  a  constant 

bish,'  while  myriads  of  His  own  adopted  flesh 
and  blood  are  starving  even  for  the  base  food  of 
the  body,  let  alone  the  nobler  food  of  the  mind; 
while  the  gambling  house  the  grog  shop  and 
the  brothel  are  recognized  necessities  of  our 
social  fabric  ;  while  the  interests  of  one  nation 
and  one  class  of  men  are  organized  in  ruthless 
hostility  to  those  of  another  nation  and  another 
class  ;  while  the  innocence  of  youth  is  offered 
up  every  day  a  smoking  holocaust  upon  the 
altars  of  mammon,  and  the  native  purity  of 
woman  gives  only  an  added  zest  to  the  diabolic 
enterprise  of  her  undoing !  Though  an  angel 
from  heaven  come  to  us  with  any  such  drivel, 
let  us  fling  back  the  blasphemy  in  his  brazen 
face.  No  thoughtful  man  dare  any  longer  deny 
that  God  is  scandalized  past  all  endurance  by  our 
prevalent  religious  hypocrisy,  and  the  boundless 
political  effrontery  which  it  engenders.  Honest 
minds  everywhere  are  beginning  to  recognize  the 
essential  humanity  of  God,  and  to  disuse  these 
old  insignia  of  a  Pagan  ignorance  and  imbecil- 
ity. Everywhere  men  are  refusing  any  longer 
to  regard  God  as  that  omnipotent  lordly  Jupiter 
they  once  did,  revelling  in  his  own  unemployed 
strength,  and  looking  down  in  contempt  upon 
modes  of  life  infinitely  less  luxurious  of  course, 
but  also  infinitely  sweeter  and  more  honest  than 
his  own ;  his  very  goodness  being  at  best  but  an 
occasional  caprice  of  his  wanton  unprincipled 
power :  and  are  coming  to  regard  Him  in  His 
Christian  aspect  exclusively,  that  is,  as  an  exqui- 

1  See  Appendix,  Note  E. 


opprobrium  to  the  Divine  Name.        237 

sitely  human  force,  with  no  unemployed  or  su- 
perfluous strength  on  hand,  all  His  strength 
indeed  being  but  the  ceaseless  efflux  of  His 
unstained  goodness  and  truth,  making  the  winds 
eternally  to  blow,  the  waters  to  flow,  and  the 
grass  to  grow,  for  the  sustenance  and  recreation 
of  universal  man.  It  is  only  as  an  every  way 
present  help  to  our  perplexities  that  God  reveals 
Himself  in  Christ,  and  no  longer  as  a  future 
one  ;  a  help  to  the  very  perplexities  we  are  now 
undergoing  public  and  private,  social  and  moral. 
And  we  are  miserably  mistaken  if  we  suppose  that 
we  are  going  to  get  His  help  by  cultivating  any 
longer  a  mere  religious  righteousness;  /'.  e.  by 
fixing  our  hope  upon  some  life  or  righteousness 
stored  up  for  us  beyond  the  grave,  to  the  practi- 
cal neglect  of  that  more  urgent  life  or  righteous- 
ness which  now  is.  Our  eternal  interests  are  of 
course  the  only  real  ones  ;  but  these  are  the  in- 
terests of  our  true  manhood,  and  have  therefore 
no  more  relevancy  to  the  life  beyond  the  grave 
than  they  have  to  that  now  present.  They  have 
no  relevancy  to  time  or  space  whatever,  but  only 
to  the  habitual  and  cultivated  temper  of  our  own 
minds,  whether  it  be  one  of  living  conformity 
to  the  Divine  spirit  or  of  merely  professed  con- 
formity. And  I  have  no  belief  accordingly  that 
he  who  is  willing  to  postpone  these  interests 
now  out  of  regard  to  any  conventional  interests 
the  most  sacred,  will  not  find  himself  just  as 
willing  to  enact  a  similar  postponement  after 
death  and  to  all  eternity. 

I  do  not  believe  for  my  own  part  that  God 


238  The  Life  which  Christ  reveal's 

has  one  lingering  grain  of  respect  or  tolerance 
left  for  those  idle  religious  fears  which  haunt  the 
pampered  sons  of  earth  with  respect  to  a  future 
life,  and  which  they  pay  solemn  clergymen  and 
dishonest  editors  of  religious  newspapers  to 
nurse  upon  their  great  lazy  knees,  now  artfully 
inflating  them  to  the  most  menacing  dimensions, 
and  anon  reducing  them  by  their  ingenious 
sophistry  to  the  most  pleasing  insignificance. 
We  are  greatly  mistaken  in  supposing  that  the 
life  which  Christ  reveals,  God's  true  life  in  man, 
is  mere  post-mortem  existence,  or  has  any  particu- 
lar respect  to  the  literal  extension  of  the  personal 
consciousness  beyond  the  grave.  The  distinc- 
tively Christian  life  is  one  of  spiritual  conjunction 
with  all  Divine  innocence  and  peace,  and  thence 
alone  of  perfect  power  or  bliss  ;  and  mere  post- 
mortem possibilities  have  no  logical  relevancy  to 
such  a  state  of  things.  Does  any  of  my  readers 
suppose  for  example  that  when  the  cowardly 
ruffian  who  assailed  Mr.  Sumner  on  the  floor  of 
the  United  States  senate,  died,  he  became  any 
more  nearly  conjoined  with  God  by  that  flimsy 
physical  event  than  he  was  before  ?  The  man's 
spirit  did  not  die ;  underwent,  so  far  as  we 
know,  no  humiliation  for  the  atrocious  out- 
rage it  enacted ;  and  consequently  remained  un- 
changed. It  was  the  mere  natural  body  that 
died;  so  leaving  the  spirit  free  to  project  its 
own  future  covering,  or  house  itself  in  a  body 
exactly  accordant  with  itself,  with  its  own  culti- 
vated character  whatever  that  might  be.  To 
be  conjoined  with  God,   to  know  the  bliss  of 


is  not  mere  post-mortem  Existence.        239 

heaven,  means  to  be  spiritually  filled  with  all 
mercy  all  gentleness  all  truth  ;  and  one  becomes 
filled  with  such  things,  not  by  any  modification 
of  his  outward  relations,  his  relations  to  space 
and  time,  but  by  inward  culture,  or  gradual 
refinement  out  of  his  native  dross.  And  to  sup- 
pose one  in  any  better  circumstances  with  respect 
to  this  end  beyond  the  grave,  is,  as  it  seems  to 
me,  not  only  gratuitous  but  extremely  derogatory 
to  God.  Because  if  the  other  world  exhibit  a 
more  favorable  set  of  influences  with  respect  to 
our  spiritual  progress  than  this  world  exhibits, 
then  clearly  God  might  if  He  had  pleased  have 
ordained  precisely  the  same  influences  here :  and 
not  having  done  so,  we  should  be  constrained  to 
say  that  He  had  not  done  the  best  thing  possible 
for  us  here  :  which  would  be  a  reflection  either 
upon  His  love  or  upon  His  wisdom,  or  else  upon 
both. 

I  have  no  manner  of  doubt  indeed  that  the 
other  life  is  even  less  mechanical  and  arbitrary 
than  this  ;  that  the  law  of  spiritual  freedom  is 
even  more  absolute  there  than  here :  thus  that  as 
there  may  be  more  exquisite  virtue  and  happi- 
ness there,  there  may  also  be  more  exquisite  vice 
and  misery.  I  have  no  fear  therefore  that  as  long 
as  bullies  and  bruisers  are  bred  by  our  imperfect 
society  or  fellowship,  they  will  not  find  bigger 
bullies  and  more  remorseless  bruisers  on  the  other 
side  of  death  to  beat  their  bullying  and  their 
bruising  out  of  them ;  this  capital  police  use 
justifying  the  existence  of  such  cattle  the  while, 
and  redeeming  it  to  a  low  savor  of  humanity. 


240   '  God  is  Perfect  Man. 

In  short  I  confess  to  the  very  greatest  satisfaction 
in  believing  that  God  is  a  perfect  man,  and  that 
the  human  quahty  accordingly,  which  is  freedom 
or  selfhood,  is  so  respected  by  Him  in  all  men, 
that  no  one  is  ever  made  better  by  miraculous 
interference,  but  only  by  appeals  to  his  reigning 
love  ;  /.  e.  by  his  being  allowed  to  reap  in  every 
case  the  proper  fruit  of  his  own  actions,  and  his 
becoming  rationally  or  freely  elevated  by  such 
experience.^ 

1  See  Appendix,  Note  F. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

But  let  us  get  back  to  our  subject. 

We  have  been  worshipping  God  in  the  relig- 
ious way  long  enough  ;  a  great  deal  too  long  in 
fact.  That  He  means  to  be  worshipped  at  length 
in  a  far  grander  way,  that  is,  in  the  way  of  life 
exclusively,  which  is  a  way  of  the  exactest  spir- 
itual conformity  to  His  spirit,  is  what  is  pro- 
claimed, I  devoutly  believe,  by  all  the  dread 
signs  and  portents  we  see  around  us ;  signs  and 
portents  of  political  corruption  disorganization 
and  death.  We  are  dying  politically  in  order 
to  be  resuscitated  socially  ;  for  the  law  of  all 
true  creation  is  that  it  flower  out  of  death,  that 
it  take  on  immortality  by  incorporating  death 
itself  into  its  substance.  We  are  thus  undergo- 
ing political  decease,  in  order  to  our  final  social 
resurrection.  We  are  dying  to  an  old  outworn 
temporary  organization,  to  rise  and  reappear  in 
one  which  shall  never  know  disease  or  blight. 
The  life  which  we  are  upon  the  verge  of  realiz- 
ing, the  life  inaugurated  by  Christ  in  human  na- 
ture, means  an  exact  accord  and  no  longer  the 
slightest  vestige  of  discord  between  the  natural 
and  spiritual  mind,  between  the  outward  and  in- 
ward man.  The  precise  and  total  meaning  of 
Christianity,  what  alone  makes  it  gospel,  or  qual- 

i6 


242  The  thorough  Redemption 

ifies  it  to  avouch  God's  highest  glory,  to  estab- 
lish peace  on  earth,  and  vindicate  God's  delight 
in  men  (iv  dvOpw-rroi^  evBoKM,  Luke  ii.  14)  is  that  it 
affirms  the  perfect  unition  of  the  Divine  and 
human  natures  in  Christ,  so  that  we  have  hence- 
forth a  nearness  to  God  which  exalts  even  per- 
sonal cleanliness  into  godliness,  and  makes  mere 
bodily  health  a  spiritual  obligation.  We  all 
know  how  through  the  dismay  of  kindred,  the 
disgust  of  friends,  the  disdain  of  the  proud,  the 
opprobrium  of  the  vile,  the  hatred  of  the  de- 
vout and  honorable,  that  most  feeble  and  suffer- 
ing brother  steadfastly  pursued  the  bright  ideal 
of  a  love  which  is  infinite,  until  at  last  that  love 
surrendered  itself  to  his  immaculate  wooing,  to 
his  stainless  keeping,  became  unqualifiedly  his 
own,  became  consubstantiate  with  his  personal 
consciousness,  so  that  he  could  say  with  perfect 
truth  "  Henceforth  I  and  my  Father  are  one." 
The  expectation  of  a  righteousness  on  earth 
at  all  commensurate  with  human  hope,  would 
have  been  utterly  fruitless  unless  some  individual 
subject  of  our  nature,  in  simple  fidelity  to  the 
light  within  him  had  thus  first  compelled  self- 
love  in  his  own  bosom  into  such  complete  sub- 
servience to  neighborly  love,  and  then  compelled 
neighborly  love  itself  into  such  complete  sub- 
servience to  universal  love,  as  to  make  that 
bosom  experience  of  his  react  and  resound  to 
the  uttermost  limits  of  God's  spiritual  dominion; 
so  that  every  individual  bosom  within  the  range 
of  that  dominion,  in  which  these  warring  loves 
inhere,  must  evermore  infallibly  feel  and  infalli- 


of  Nature  in  Christ.  243 

bly  reflect  the  influence  of  that  stupendous  recon- 
ciHation.  For  this  work^,  being  once  done  and 
so  done,  is  done  forever  and  for  all  men ;  so  that 
wherever  we  can  imagine  in  the  lowest  hell  a 
form  of  evil  duskier  than  all  its  fellows,  and  in 
the  highest  heavens  a  form  of  good  more  lus- 
trous than  every  other  form,  these  two  instantly 
find  themselves  stripped  by  that  great  anguish 
of  their  puny  intrinsic  antagonism,  and  forever 
indissolubly  blent  in  a  new  and  Divine  manhood 
instinct  with  an  infinite  good. 

My  son!  give  me  thy  heart !  is  God's  sole  claim 
upon  His  creature.  The  social  man  alone,  and 
for  the  first  time  in  human  history,  fully  meets 
this  claim,  because  in  him  alone  the  heart  is  dis- 
lodged from  its  long  captivity  to  the  head,  and 
so  becomes  capable  at  last  of  bringing  forth 
fruit  directly  to  God,  bounteous  spiritual  fruit 
filling  the  earth  with  peace.  What  alone  makes 
man  the  image  of  God,  what  exalts  the  human 
form  to  the  rightful  supremacy  of  nature,  is, 
that  it  puts  the  heart  in  the  first  place,  the  head 
in  the  second  place,  and  the  hand  in  the  last 
place.  To  work  out  this  exquisite  hierarchy  of 
the  human  form  :  to  give  the  feminine  element 
in  life  its  hard-earned  but  eternal  supremacy  of 
the  masculine  element:  has  been  the  secret  inspi- 
ration of  all  past  history.  Visibly  to  organize 
this  beautiful  and  permanent  order  of  human 
life  ;  to  release  the  suffering  down-trodden  Eve 
of  human  affection  from  the  coarse  defiling 
Adam  of  the  intellect,  and  exalt  her  to  virgin 
innocence,  or  empower  her  to  conceive  directly 


244  Christ  is  not  a  Spirit, 

of  the  Infinite  and  bring  forth  at  last  that  seed 
of  long  promise  which  "is  yet  to  bruise  the  ser- 
pent's head  :  this  I  repeat  has  been  the  one  aim 
of  God's  majestic  Providence  on  earth;  and  this 
aim  stands  accomplished  only  in  our  perfect 
social  manhood  ;  only  in  that  great  redemptive 
work  of  God's  spirit  in  our  nature  whereby  my 
reader  and  I,  and  whatsoever  else  is  alive  in 
Christendom,  are  being  gradually  moulded  out 
of  the  most  depraved  moral  conditions  into  the 
dignity  of  social  beings,  beings  who  have  a  sym- 
pathy and  therefore  a  destiny  as  wide  as  the  uni- 
verse of  God. 

In  Christ  the  ground  of  our  everlasting  re- 
joicing, as  I  have  already  said,  is,  that  his  natu- 
ral part  was  glorified  ;  not  merely  his  spiritual 
part,  as  is  the  case  in  our  ordinary  regeneration, 
but  his  downright  natural  body  as  well.  Not 
his  inward  spirit  alone,  but  his  shrinking  cower- 
ing outward  body  also,  lent  such  faultless  obedi- 
ence to  every  behest  of  the  infinite  love  in  his 
soul,  as  eventually  to  discharge  itself  of  its 
merely  material  or  inherited  contents,  and  take 
on  living  Divine  substance  instead,  so  that  his 
flesh  as  we  are  told  saw  no  corruption,  J  spirit, 
he  said  to  his  astonished  disciples  aft:er  his  resur- 
rection, hath  not  flesh  and  hones  as  ye  see  me  have: 
handle  me  and  make  sure  of  the  faEi.  Now  in 
inspired  speech,  which  is  necessarily  symbolic, 
flesh  and  bones  signify  the  lowest  or  natural 
things  of  the  mind,  the  passions  and  appetites 
we  derive  from  nature.  And  consequently  by 
Christ's  alleged  union  with  God  even  down  to 


hut  a  Divine  Natural  Man.  245 

these  lowest  natural  things,  is  signified  that  the 
love  which  we  all  owe  to  ourselves  will  eventu- 
ally be  cultivated  into  such  harmony  with  the 
love  we  owe  our  neighbors,  and  this  again  be- 
come cultivated  into  such  harmony  with  the 
love  we  owe  the  world  or  all  men,  that  they  will 
be  both  alike  glorified  out  of  all  their  intrinsic 
antagonism  —  out  of  all  resemblance  to  their 
former  finite  selves  — ■  by  becoming  both  alike 
merged  in  the  unity  of  the  social  sentiment,  the 
truly  infinite  or  perfect  sentiment  of  a  universal 
human  brotherhood  :  so  that  the  rational  under- 
standing of  man,  symbolized  by  the  astonished 
disciples,  will  thenceforth  see  Nature  herself  to 
be  Divinely  quickened,  and  even  this  corrupti- 
ble body  of  ours  brought  into  living  glowing 
conscious  unity  with  God. 

It  is  striking  to  observe  the  discrepancy  be- 
tween the  face  of  the  New  Testament,  and  the 
puerile  theologies  which  profess  to  be  illuminat- 
ed by  it.  In  the  New  Testament  you  read  of  a 
kingdom  of  God  to  be  established  upon  earth; 
of  a  Divine  operation  to  be  wrought  in  the 
sphere  of  the  senses ;  of  a  hope  which  looks  for 
fulfilment  to  the  promised  return  of  Christ  to 
take  possession  of  the  kingdoms  of  the  world 
and  reign  forever.  The  only  prayer  he  taught 
us  to  address  to  God,  is,  that  His  name  might 
be  hallowed.  His  kingdom  come,  and  His  will 
be  done  —  on  earth  as  in  heaven.  Look  at  our 
theologies,  or  listen  to  our  preachers  thence  dis- 
ciplined, and  you  will  find  the  hope  they  set  be- 
fore their  followers  to  consist  in  a  mere  evasion 


246  Swcdenhorg   explodes  the  Notion 

of  the  gospel  promise,  being  made  to  attach  ex- 
clusively to  a  life  beyond  the  grave.  Not  one 
word  of  God's  promised  kingdom  upon  the 
earth,  a  kingdom  which  should  be  everlasting: 
but  any  amount  of  puny  naturalism  under  the 
form  of  angelic  coddling  and  nursing.  Not 
one  word  of  universal  man  healed,  purified,  and 
restored  to  God  in  that  very  point  where  alone 
he  needed  God's  help,  his  nature  :  but  any 
amount  of  sentimental  nonsense  designed  to 
comfort  well-to-do  worldlings  against  the  ner- 
vous fear  of  death.  One  would  think  listening 
to  our  orthodox  pulpit  strains  that  an  incident 
over  which  we  have  no  more  power  than  we 
have  over  our  birth,  and  which  vegetable  and 
animal  undergo  without  a  groan  or  a  shudder, 
has  yet  been  made  by  God's  wisdom  the  true 
test  of  our  whimpering  manhood,  and  the  only 
suitable  goal  of  its  discipline.  In  a  word  we 
find  God's  sole  work  of  mercy  operated  in  our 
very  nature,  a  work  of  universal  redemption 
alone  befitting  the  infinitude  of  His  love,  so 
completely  overlaid  by  a  piddling  doctrine  of 
the  favoritism  He  is  capable  of  showing  cer- 
tain fussy  individual  souls  here  and  there,  that 
Christ's  famous  question  —  nevertheless  when  the 
Son  of  ?nan  cometh^  shall  he  find  faith  on  the  earth? 
—  gets  a  very  loud  answer. 

I  do  not  know  a  better  reading  for  anybody 
who  wishes  to  get  his  imagination  effectually 
disenchanted  of  the  illusions  which  are  too  apt 
to  be  cherished  on  post-mortem  conditions  gener- 
ally, than   the  writings   of  Swedenborg.       Swe- 


of  any  arbitrary  Power  in  God.         247 

denborg  renders  indeed  a  much  more  positive 
service  to  the  mind  than  this;  but  a  very  great 
negative  advantage  nevertheless  derivable  from 
his  writings  to  Philosophy,  is  the  very  clear  light 
they  shed  upon  the  indestructibleness  of  human 
freedom  under  all  circumstances ;  so  that  all 
Divine  power  is  impotent  to  do  a  man  any 
permanent  good,  save  in  the  strictest  conso- 
nance with  its  requirements.  In  all  God's  deal- 
ings with  us  He  regards  the  interests  of  our 
freedom  as  jealously  as  a  man  guards  the  apple 
of  his  eye:  because  without  freedom  or  selfhood 
we  should  be  incapable  of  spiritual  conjunction 
with  Him,  and  so  fail  of  our  creation.  For  this 
reason  it  is  that  His  great  creative  work  demands 
a  natural  sphere  of  ultimation,  since  whatsoever 
is  done  in  our  nature  leaves  us  spiritually  uncon- 
strained, or  preserves  our  individual  freedom  in- 
tact. Swedenborg  accordingly  unmasks  what 
we  call  "the  other  world"  of  its  factitious  sem- 
blances derived  from  our  egotism  and  supersti- 
tion, and  shows  it  to  be  everywhere  intensely 
human,  glowing  with  the  same  vivid  life  in  kind 
—  only  more  intense  in  degree  and  more  orderly 
in  manifestation  —  as  that  which  now  animates 
our  bosoms. 

But  even  in  regard  to  angelic  existence,  which 
is  the  point  upon  which  our  readiest  superstition 
hinges,  his  books  exhibit  a  very  detergent  effi- 
cacy. They  have  it  —  at  least  I  infer  as  much 
from  their  effect  on  me — as  their  surest  incidental 
or  negative  result,  to  dissipate  that  vague  pres- 
tige of  superiority  which  we  are  wont  to  attrib- 


248  The  Jngel  and  the  Devil 

ute  to  the  angel  over  man,  and  to  assert  for  the 
latter  the  clear  supremacy  of  creation.  In  read- 
ing Swedenborg  I  feel  myself  completely  dis- 
abused of  the  charm  which  angelic  existence 
has  always  exerted  upon  my  imagination,  sim- 
ply because  I  can  in  no  way  reconcile  myself 
to  that  fixed  shadow  of  infernality  which  he 
honestly  declares  and  proves  to  be  inseparable 
from  it.  According  to  Swedenborg,  and  what 
is  more  than  a  myriad  Swedenborgs,  according 
to  common  sense,  hell  is  the  perpetual  shadow 
of  heaven,  its  logical  background  without  which 
heaven  could  not  appear  as  heaven.  No  angel, 
as  he  says,  but  stands  foot  to  foot  with  some 
devil ;  no  society  of  angels  but  stands  foot  to 
foot  with  some  society  of  devils.  What  an 
odious  glimpse  of  creation  this,  if  this  were  all ! 
What  an  infirm  exhibition  of  Divine  power,  if 
the  angel  were  its  final  manifestation  ;  or  if  it 
consisted  only  in  eternally  antagonizing  spirit 
with  flesh  !  But  no !  blessed  be  God  !  He  is 
capable  of  conferring  a  positive  righteousness 
upon  His  creature,  a  righteousness  which  does 
not  stand  in  the  mere  contrast  and  elimination 
of  evil.  In  a  word  He  is  able  to  create  man  in 
whom  evil  spontaneously  subjects  itself  to  good, 
and  in  whom  accordingly  life  shines  forth  quite 
infinitely  as  being  wholly  undimmed  by  the 
ghastly  and  revolting  oppugnancy  of  death. 

The  angel  according  to  Swedenborg  is  formed 
by  the  elimination  or  casting  out  of  the  devil. 
Thus  the  devil  stands  for  so  much  waste  human 
force  as  the  angel  fails  to  realize  in  the  process 


both  involved  in  Man.  249 

of  his  conjunction  with  God.  He  expresses  the 
angel's  infirm  natural  side  ;  all  that  natural  in- 
firmity which  the  latter  sheds  or  separates  from 
himself  in  the  process  of  his  regeneration.  He 
is  merely  the  gross  earthly  grub  or  grovelling 
caterpillar,  of  which  the  angel  is  the  emancipat- 
ed soaring  butterfly.  Hence  the  more  angels 
the  more  devils  ;  so  that  if  there  were  not  some 
higher  manifestation  of  the  Divine  power  possi- 
ble than  takes  place  in  the  angel,  the  universe 
of  nature  would  be  a  perpetual  prey  to  the 
rivalry  of  these  unreconciled  forces. 

But  there  is  a  higher  manifestation  possible, 
an  infinitely  higher  one,  which  is  the  Lord,  or 
Divine  Natural  man.  In  him  this  waste  hu- 
man force  which  the  angel  rejects,  and  which 
accordingly  constitutes  the  devil,  is  all  taken  up, 
and  becomes  the  guarantee  of  an  endless  Divine 
glorification  on  earth  infinitely  transcending 
everything  known  in  heaven.  This  is  the  great 
arcanum  which  underlies  the  truth  of  Christ's 
resurrection  and  ascension,  or  the  glorification 
of  his  natural  body  down  to  its  flesh  and  bones. 
Handle  me  and  see.,  he  said  to  his  stupefied  disci- 
ples who  fancied  that  they  saw  a  spirit :  a  spirit 
hath  not  flesh  and  hones  as  ye  see  me  have.  Un- 
like the  mere  good  man  or  angel  he  excluded 
no  affection  which  inflowed  to  him  either  from 
the  universal  heaven  or  the  universal  hell.  On 
the  contrary  he  received  all  and  converted  all 
into  a  worthy  triumph  of  the  Divine  Love,  by 
turning  the  evil  affections  into  the  spontaneous 
subjection  of  the  good  affections,  or  making  hell 


250  Influence  of  the  Christian  Truth 

itself  the  willing  and  cordial  servitor  of  heaven: 
so  that  the  very  flesh  and  bones  which  he  had 
derived  from  his  mother,  and  which  ordinary 
men  leave  in  the  grave,  that  base  flesh  and  bones 
which  connected  him  in  sympathy  with  the  en- 
tire finite  realm  of  being  angelic  and  diabolic, 
became  really  or  spiritually  his  own,  became  so 
transformed  by  the  purifying  fires  of  his  soul 
into  the  image  of  his  inmost  Divine  and  infinite 
innocence,  as  to  avouch  themselves  at  length  its 
every  way  adequate  instrument,  its  befitting  and 
inseparable  tabernacle  to  eternity. 

The  priceless  value  of  the  Christian  truth  is, 
that  it  thus  reveals  God  to  us  as  a  glorified  nat- 
ural man,  and  consequently  makes  any  amount 
of  hope  for  this  despised  and  degraded  natural 
body  of  ours,  for  its  growth  in  all  health  and 
beauty  and  dazzling  innocence  not  only  possible, 
but  a  strict  religious  delight  and  obligation. 
Can  any  one  really  be  so  foolish  as  to  suppose 
that  God  can  worthily  provide  for  the  soul, 
without  first  providing  for  that  matchless  taber- 
nacle in  which  it  resides :  that  He  can  insure  us 
an  endless  spiritual  or  private  individual  devel- 
opment, without  first  freeing  our  natural  or  com- 
mon life  from  those  disorders  which  have  hith- 
erto borne  it  down  to  the  earth  ?  Well,  this  is 
the  precise  marvel  wrapped  up  in  the  truth  of 
Christ's  resurrection  from  death  in  his  natural 
body  ;  namely :  the  reduction  of  human  nature 
ITSELF  to  order,  so  that  our  hitherto  neglected 
body  shall  become  the  only  visible  and  acknowl- 
edged temple  of  God,  lustrous  with  all  inward 


in  the  Natural  plane  of  the  Mind.       251 

vigor  and  outward  beauty,  the  shrine  of  every 
chaste  and  generous  and  ennobhng  offering. 

However  much  then  we  may  esteem  the  an- 
gel, and  aspire  to  emulate  him  in  spiritual  things, 
we  are  bound  also  by  our  superior  reverence  for 
the  angel's  Lord,  not  to  omit  the  devil  either 
from  our  most  hopeful  regard.  The  devil  has 
hitherto  had  the  most  niggardly  appreciation  at 
our  hands,  because  in  our  ignorance  of  God's 
stupendous  designs  of  mercy  on  earth,  or  of  His 
creative  achievements  in  human  nature,  we  have 
supposed  the  devil  to  be  an  utter  outcast  of  His 
providence,  a  purely  irrational  quantity ;  nor 
ever  dreamed  that  it  lay  within  the  purpose  and 
resources  of  the  Divine  Love  to  bind  him  to  its 
own  perfect  allegiance.  Yet  so  it  is  neverthe- 
less. He  has  been  from  the  beginning  our  only 
heaven-appointed  churchman  and  statesman,  the 
very  man  of  men  for  doing  all  that  showy  work 
of  the  world,  namely  persuading,  preaching,  ca- 
joling, governing,  which  is  requisite  to  be  done, 
and  which  is  fitly  paid  by  the  honors  and  emol- 
uments of  the  world.  In  our  ignorant  contempt 
of  the  devil  we  have  insisted  upon  making  the 
angel  do  this  incongruous  work  ;  never  suspect- 
ing that  we  were  thus  doing  our  best  to  promote 
his  and  our  joint  and  equal  discontent.  The 
angel  is  the  worst  possible  ecclesiastic  or  politi- 
cian, because  being  of  all  things  a  man  of  an 
internal  quality,  public  life  is  sure  to  disgust 
him :  and  disgust  is  a  poor  preparation  for  duty. 
No  man  of  truly  angelic  possibilities  is  ever 
greatly  up  to  the  demands  of  the  actual  life.     If 


252  In  Divine  Order  the  first 

such  a  man  manages  to  avoid  stealing,  or  doing 
other  palpable  mischief,  it  is  as  much  as  we  may 
reasonably  ask  of  him.  But  put  him  in  a  post 
of  eminence  or  of  large  responsibility,  and  he 
will  be  sure  to  go  on  blundering  at  such  a  rate, 
and  putting  things  to  such  confusion  by  his 
most  unseasonable  simplicity  and  good  nature, 
by  his  most  unreasonable  confidence  in  exactly 
the  least  deserving  and  most  designing  persons, 
that  you  are  forced  erelong  to  send  to  Wall  Street 
for  some  remorseless  financier  to  straighten  his 
accounts,  and  save  the  world  from  bankruptcy. 

The  devil  is  the  born  prince  of  this  world, 
and  a  capital  one  he  is,  if  we  would  let  the  Di- 
vine Wisdom  have  its  way  with  him,  which  is 
not  to  ignore  him,  as  our  foolish  sentimental- 
ists prescribe,  but  to  utilize  him  to  the  utmost: 
which  He  does  by  giving  him  the  best  places  in 
the  world,  all  the  delights,  all  the  honors  and  re- 
wards of  sense,  that  so  he  may  put  forth  his 
marvellous  fecundity  of  invention  and  produc- 
tion to  deserve  and  secure  them.  This  is  what 
the  Divine  Providence  has  always  sought  to 
compass  from  the  beginning,  namely :  to  manu- 
mit the  devil,  or  bind  him  by  his  own  lusts  ex- 
clusivelv,   which  are   the  ~Iove   ot    self  and  the 


love  of"the  world,  to  the  joyous  eternal  alle- 
giance of  maa  We,  sage  philosophers  that  we 
are,  have  done  our  futile  best  to  hinder  the  Di- 
vine ways  by  always  thrusting  the  most  incon- 
gruous and  incompetent  people  into  public  af- 
fairs ;  and  have  consequently  got  the  whole 
theory    of    administration    so    sophisticated,    as 


is  last,  and  the  last  first.  253 

greatly  to  embarrass  the  right  incumbent  when 
he  does  arrive,  and  set  him  half  the  time  talking 
the  most  irrelevant  piety,  instead  of  doing  the 
sharp  and  satisfactory  work  which  he  is  all  the 
while  providentially  itching  to  do.  What  sort 
of  a  pope  would  Fenelon  have  made  ?  And 
how  would  political  interests  thrive  with  the 
apostle  John  at  the  head  of  affairs  *?  I  confess 
for  my  part  I  would  bestow  my  vote  in  prefer- 
ence upon  General  Jackson  or  Louis  Napoleon 
any  day,  simply  because  they  are  as  I  presume 
very  inferior  men  spiritually,  and  therefore  in- 
comparably better  qualified  for  ruling  other  men, 
which  is  spiritually  the  lowest  or  least  human 
of  voc!ations/  «——=-■ 

Let  not  my  reader  misconceive  me,  I  have 
not  the  slightest  idea  of  hell  as  a  transitory  im- 
plication ot  human  destiny,  as  an  exhausted  ele- 
ment of  human  progress.  On  the  contrary  I 
conceive  that  the  vital  needs  of  human  freedom 
exact  its  eternal  perpetuity.  I  admit,  nay  I 
insist,  that  the  devil  is  fast  becoming  and  will 
one  day  be  a  perfect  gentleman  ;  that  he  will 
wholly  unlearn  his  nasty  tricks  of  vice  and  crime, 

1  I  wish  very  much  by  the  way  its  backbone,  and  human  thought 
that  our  Unitarian  and  Univer-  would  again  recover  its  tonic 
salist  philosophers  would  take  a  quality,  and  we  should  all  get 
look  in  this  direction,  and  give  deliverance  from  that  puerile  Pan- 
up  their  sentimental  shrieking  at  theistic  gabble  which  is  fast  stran- 
the  devil  regarded  as  a  vital  el-  gling  the  higher  faculties  of  the 
ement  of  human  consciousness,  mind  under  the  grasp  of  an  all- 
Because  in  that  case  our  insane  devouring  Imagination,  and  in 
and  inane  Transcendentalism,  comparison  with  which  as  it 
against  which  the  prevalent  so-  seems  to  me  unmitigated  Athe- 
called  Spiritualism  is  a  maudlin  ism  would  be  manly  sincere  and 
protest  and  reaction,  would  fail  of  evangelical. 


254  Hell  glorified  in  conventional^ 

and  become  a  model  of  sound  morality,  infusing 
an  unwonted  energy  into  the  police  department, 
and  inflating  public  worship  with  an  unprece- 
dented pomp  and  magnificence.  Otherwise  of 
course  I  could  not  imagine  why  our  Lord  and 
Saviour  with  a  full  knowledge  of  the  character 
and  tendencies  of  Judas  Iscariot  yet  chose  him 
into  the  number  of  the  sacred  twelve,  and  in- 
trusted him  with  the  provision  of  his  and  their 
material  welfare.  But  the  gentleman  is  infinitely 
short  of  the  man  ;  and  however  gentlemanly  the 
devil  will  infallibly  grow,  there  he  will  stop; 
and  leave  the  sacred  heights  of  manhood  unat- 
tempted!  ~~  " 

The  gentleman  is  the  apotheosis  or  glorified 
form  of  the  devil ;  while  man  is  the  apotheosis 
or  glorified  form  of  the  angel :  the  former  obey- 
ing  a  purely  natural  inspiration,  the  latter  a 
purely  spiritual  one.  The  gentleman  always 
acts  with  the  most  studious  and  unfaltering  cour- 
tesy, with  a  faultless  regard  to  what  is  conven- 
tionally due  to  others  ;  herein  indeed  very  often 
putting  the  more  richly  but  less  showily  endowed 
man  to  the  blush.  But  his  action  obeys  a  purely 
natural  impulse,  having  no  higher  spring  than 
that  sentiment  of  fellowship  which  relates  him 
to  his  kind,  and  forbids  him  under  penalty  of 
forfeiting  his  self-respect,  or  wounding  his  self- 
love,  to  do  anything  even  discourteous,  much 
more  anything  injurious,  to  his  neighbor.  The 
man  on  the  other  hand  is  very  little  solicitous 
about  the  points  of  good-breeding  which  inter- 
est the  gentleman;    unless  indeed  you  can  con- 


Heaven  in  true.  Manhood.  255" 

ceive  the  two  characters  amicably  blent  in  the 
same  individuality.  I  cannot  myself  do  this. 
It  seems  to  me  that  the  only  way  they  can  ever 
amicably  combine  in  the  same  bosom,  is  upon 
the  somewhat  Hibernian  condition  of  the  one 
being  strictly  subjected  to  the  needs  of  the  other. 
The  veritable  man,  the  man  who  obeys  a  purely 
spiritual  or  inward  inspiration,  cannot  be  made 
to  occupy  himself  with  his  merely  outward  ob- 
ligations of  any  sort,  much  less  with  the  obli- 
gations of  pure  courtesy  and  good-manners.  If 
he  is  born  into  a  good  heritage  in  this  respect, 
if  courtesy  and  good  manners  have  somewhere 
got  into  his  blood,  very  well :  he  will  mechani- 
cally or  instinctively  reproduce  them  :  but  no 
thanks  to  him  for  the  boon.  In  all  social  re- 
spects he  is  the  undoubted  inferior  of  the  gen- 
tleman, and  cannot  compete  for  his  prizes  even 
if  he  would.  It  is  only  in  inward  or  spiritual 
regards  that  he  takes  precedence ;  not  in  his  ac- 
tion, but  only  in  the  superior  depth  and  purity 
of  the  source  from  which  the  action  proceeds. 


CHAPTER   XV. 

I  HOPE  I  shall  by  this  time  have  succeeded  in 
satisfying  the  reader,  that  my  criticism  of  the 
church  is  well-founded,  and  that  Philosophy  feels 
no  interest  in  reinstating  religion  as  a  truth  of 
doctrine,  but  only  in  reproducing  it  as  a  life. 
Let  us  now  prepare  accordingly  to  dismiss  the 
negative  portion  of  our  task,  and  turn  to  the 
much  more  agreeable  aspect  it  presents  on  its 
constructive  side. 

One  thing  clearly  results  from  the  survey  we 
have  been  making  of  the  religious  instinct ;  and 
this  is,  that  religion  has  had  but  one  legitimate 
spiritual  aim,  namely :  the  softening  of  the  self- 
hood or  proprium  which  man  derives  from  na- 
ture ;  the  depletion  of  his  natural  pride  and 
self-seeking  in  order  to  his  subsequent  spiritual 
impletion  with  all  Divine  gentleness  peace  and 
innocence.  The  total  function  of  religion  wher- 
ever it  has  exhibited  the  least  spiritual  efficacy, 
/.  e.  operated  any  modification  of  the  life  of  its 
subject,  appears  to  have  consisted  in  signalizing 
to  his  consciousness  a  certain  evil  in  his  natural 
make  or  inheritance,  which  is  to  be  overcome 
before  he  can  attain  to  a  conscious  perfect  con- 
junction with  God. 

Now  the  reader  has  every  right  to  demand  of 


Nature  implied  in  Man.  257 

me,  why  religion  necessarily  involves  this  purga- 
torial element :  why  it  is,  in  other  words,  that 
every  religion  which  abjures  a  sentimental  basis, 
or  claims  to  be  called  natural  in  opposition  to 
artificial,  instinctual  in  contradistinction  to  vol- 
untary, proceeds  upon  sacrifice ;  figuratively  sus- 
pends the  purification  of  the  worshipper's  flesh 
upon  "  the  shedding  of  blood  "  '? 

I  can  only  answer  this  question  worthily  by 
explicating  in  the  clearest  possible  manner  the 
Origin  of  Nature  ;  by  showing  that  Nature  is  a 
rigid  involution  or  implication  of  nian^L.5P,iLiiiiSL 
destiny,  and  hence  has  neither  the  slightest  power 
nor  pretension  beyond  what  our  ignorance  and 
superstition  give  it,,  to  limit  that  destiny,  but 
only  to  promote  its  eternal  evolution  and  expli- 
cation. We  now  enjoy  a  better  knowledge  of 
spiritual  laws,  which  are  the  true  laws  of  crea- 
tion, than  our  predecessors  enjoyed.  Spiritual 
laws  which  are  the  laws  of  our  true  individual- 
ity, as  natural  laws  are  those  of  our  phenomenal 
identity,  are  better  understood  than  they  were  a 
century  since,  and  it  is  upon  these  alone  that  I 
shall  rely  for  the  clearing  up  of  my  reader's 
doubts.  I  shall  endeavor  to  show  him  that  the 
interests  of  our  spiritual  formation  in  the  Divine 
image  exact  as  a  basis  our  natural  creation,  and 
that  whereas  the  folly  of  the  past  has  consisted 
in  ignoring  this  order,  to  the  extent  of  making 
flesh  dominate  spirit,  or  substance  form ;  the 
wisdom  of  the  future  will  consist  in  scrupulously 
acknowledging  it,  and  holding  nature  conse- 
quently, or  the  sphere  of  our  common  life,  to 
17 


258  The  Church's  incompetency 

the  strictest,  nay,  to  the  unlimited  subserviency 
of  our  private  or  spiritual  aspirations. 

Viewing  human  history  in  the  light  which 
Revelation  sheds  upon  it,  its  whole  meaning 
may  be  thus  formulated:  a  demonstration  by 
God's  providence  of  our  native  incapacity  to 
act  honestly  from  any  other  motive  than  inter- 
est ;  and  hence  of  the  necessity  we  are  all  alike 
under  of  a  spiritual  extrication  or  redemption 
from  the  control  of  our  nature,  before  we  can 
bring  forth  the  least  ripe  fruit  of  manly  or  disin- 
terested action.  Our  moral  experience  furnishes 
of  course  the  indispensable  theatre  of  this  Di- 
vine demonstration  or  achievement  ;  because 
nature  culminates  in  morality,  comes  to  a  head 
in  man  ;  so  that  God  is  able  to  deal  with  it  as  a 
rational  quantity  only  In  the  person  of  Its  repre- 
sentatives. But  our  moral  experience  Is  not  of 
the  slightest  worth  save  as  subserving  this  grand 
historic  demonstration.  It  becomes  a  downright 
unqualified  nuisance  indeed  the  moment  It  ceases 
to  subserve  It,  the  moment  it  claims  a  direct  Di- 
vine sanctity. 

It  is  her  failure  to  discern  this  truth  as  we 
have  seen  which  has  turned  the  technical  church 
Into  such  a  refuse  of  spiritual  Imbecility;  which 
has  converted  professional  religion  into  such  a 
citadel  of  spiritual  uncleanness.  The  church 
habitually  misconceiv^sTlie  intrinsic  subserviency 
of  morality  to  the  evolution  of  man's  spiritual 
dqstiny  on  earth_^  and  by  adroTtly  flattering  his 
instinct  of  self-righteousness,  or  teaching  him 
that  his   moral   force   is   the   direct   measure   of 


to  interpret  Revelation.  2  59 

God's  goodness  and  power  towards  him,  suc- 
ceeds in  indefinitely  postponing  the  advent  of  a 
scientific  society  among  men,  and  consequently 
in  balking  all  that  rich  promise  of  spontaneous  . 
or  producdve,  acJiyily  which  is  based  upon  such  / 
advent..  No  doubt  she  outwardly  professes  a 
fliith  in  the  Incarnation.  No  doubt  as  against 
heretics  she  maintains  that  Christ  did  veritably 
constitute  the  entire  spiritual  substance  of  that 
typical  or  prophetic  righteousness,  which  was 
Divinely  guaranteed  to  human  hope  in  the  Jew- 
ish ritual ;  inasmuch  as  he  putatively  reconciled 
the  human  nature  to  the  Divine  in  himself.  But 
while  thus  recognizing  the  Divine  Incarnation 
in  words,  she  yet  in  spirit  and  truth  most  profli- 
gately profanes  and  defeats  it,  by  ascribing  to 
Christ  that  purely  finite  individuality  which  be- 
longed to  him  in  the  flesh,  and  so  denying  him 
the  spiritual  infinitude  which  was  the  only  mean- 
ing  of  his  glorification,  and  which  stamped  him 
thenceforward  the  sole  Divine  life  of  all  on  earth 
that  has  life.  She  thus  consistently  keeps  us  in 
a  purely  personal  relation  to  Christ  instead  ot  a 
purely  s^pi ritual  one,  _or  exalts  the  moral  senti- 
ment, the  sentiment  of  our  individual  worth  in 
God's  sight  to  a  primary  place  in  our  regard, 
while  she  depresses  the  social  sentiment  to  a 
wholly  secondary  place  :  so  giving  our  base  in- 
stinctual egotism  that  Divine  sanction  which  is 
due  only  to  our  cultivated  unity  or  fraternity. 
Plaving  no  faintest  conception  of  our  inward 
and  indissoluble  nearness  to,  God ;  never  so 
much  as  dreaming  that  He  every  moment  is 


26o  Theology  and  Philosophy  only 

our  sole  true  life,  while  we  ourselves  are  but 
the  semblance  of  that  life:  the  church  allows 
us  ignorantly  to  grovel  in  the  conviction  that 
we  are  each  of  us  life  in  ourselves  —  not  mere_ 
circumferential  phenomenal  forms  of  life  — ^but 
real  substantial  centres  of  life  to  ourselves,  just 
as  Gotl  is  to  himself  And  we  on  our  side 
are  not  slow  to  improve  the  lesson,  or  illustrate 
its  practical  value,  by  proudly  insisting  upon 
being  treated  by  God  not  as  affectionate  chil- 
dren to  whom  everything  is  a  boon,  but  as 
emancipated  self-complacent  Pharisees  to  whom 
nothing  comes  acceptably  which  does  not  come 
of  merit. 

The  theologian  and  philosopher  so-called  have 
done  little  hitherto  but  confirm  us  in  these  be- 
sotted natural  prepossessions.  In  fact  these  men 
above  all  others  foster  the  pride  of  moral- 
ism  in  the  race,  and  so  confirm  its  spiritual 
death,  by  systematically  confounding  seeming 
with  being  or  making  subjective  fact  the  meas- 
ure  of  objective  truth.  Of  course  if  I  am  ob- 
jectively or  to  God's  regard  what  I  am  subjec- 
tively or  to  my  own  consciousness,  there  can  be 
no  hope  for  me  ;  because  in  that  case  I  must 
either  deem  myself  a  saint  possessing  a  good 
conscience  towards  God,  and  so  put  myself  at 
an  infinite  inward  distance  from  Him  ;  or  else 
deem  myself  a  sinner  possessing  an  evil  con- 
science, and  so  put  myself  at  an  infinite  outward 
remove  from  Him.  These  men  accept  without 
any  misgiving  this  fundamental  fallacy  of  sense, 
that  we   are  our  own  substantial  life,  not  mere 


inflame  our  natural  Pharisaism.         261 

forms  or  subjects  of  an  infinite  life  :  hence  that 
we  are  properly  separable  before  God  into  vir- 
tuous and  vicious,  celestial  and  infernal  beings, 
who  are  respectively  most  worthy  of  his  smile 
and  frown.  And  a  philosophy  which  admits  or 
tolerates  this  primary  misconception,  is  vicious 
from  top  to  bottom.  For  the  sole  legitimate 
pretension  of  any  philosophy,  is,  not  to  intensify 
the  discord  which  both  sense  and  reason,  both 
faith  and  science,  allege  between  infinite  and 
finite,  between  absolute  and  relative ;  but  for- 
ever to  reconcile  them  in  a  unity  so  perfect  that 
neither  will  care  thenceforth  to  know  how  much 
belongs  to  the  one  element,  or  how  much  to  the 
other. 

The  distinction  of  religious  and  profane 
among  men,  or  of  the  church  and  the  world, 
is  of  no  account  in  itself,  but  only  as  symboliz- 
ing a  great  formative  or  redemptive  work  op- 
erated by  God  within  the  limits  of  our  very 
nature,  within  the  conditions  of  the  natural 
conscience.  The  common  sentiment  in  the 
church^  implies  that  saint  and  sinner  are  two 
most  distinct  persons  impossible  to  be  blent  in 
the  same  bosom,  one  emerging  to  the  Divine 
regard  and  his  own  consciousness,  only  as  the 
other  immerses.  This  is  a  purely  sensual  look 
at  things;  for  the  celestial  quality  of  the  human 

1  And  for  that  matter  in   the  The  church  is  wholly  worldly  as 

world  :  for  these  two  things  run  to  her  substantial   animus  ;    the 

together  at  such  a  rate,  the  church  world  wholly  religious  as  to  its 

having  become  so  worldly   and  formal  pretences   or  professions. 

the  world  so  churchy,  that  it  is  a  Thus   it   is    no    matter   whether 

nice  point  to  discriminate  them,  you  say  the  one  or  the  other. 


262  There  is  but  One  Life. 

bosom  is  determined  in  every  case  by  the  gen- 
uine unaffected  acknowledgment  its  occupant 
makes  of  himself  as  a  sinner;  and  its  infernal 
quality  by  the  genuine  unaffected  relish  he  en- 
joys of  himself  as  a  righteous  person.  There 
is  but  One  life  in  the  universe  ;  and  consequent- 
ly all  the  contrasts  of  our  experience,  both 
moral  and  physical,  all  the  diversities  not  merely 
of  good  and  evil  among  men  but  also  of  pleas- 
ure and  pain,  together  with  all  the  varieties  of 
either,  owe  their  existence  exclusively  to  the 
relation  we  practically  sustain  to  that  great  Life, 
whether  a  positive  relation  or  a  negative  one. 
For  if  there  be  but  One  life  from  which  every 
man  is  alike  enlivened,  that  of  the  infinite  Cre- 
ator and  Redeemer,  then  the  unity  of  the  crea- 
ture, which  means  the  exact  and  unswerving 
equality  of  each  with  every  other,  is  not  only  a 
philosophic  truth  to  which  all  things  in  heaven 
are  conformed,  but  must  become  also  a  scien- 
tific truth  or  truth  of  the  senses,  to  which  all 
things  on  earth  will  eventually  bow.  And  his- 
tory is  merely  the  working  out  of  this  great 
purpose  in  humanity ;  the  perfect  spiritual  au- 
thentication ot  that  great  literal  revelation  of 
His  perfection  which  God  makes  in  the  Christ, 
glorifying  our  very  nature  into  eternal  union 
with  Himself  For  while  our  historic  experi- 
ence leaves  no  further  doubt  upon  the  origin  of 
conscience,  making  it  to  hinge  upon  the  une- 
quivocal duality  of  relation  we  are  under  to 
God  and  our  neighbor,  or  giving  it  a  twofold 
aspect,  one  towards  the  infinite  another  towards 


The  philosophif  Idea  of  Creation.         263 

the  finite  :  It  clearly  teaches  us  also  that  these 
two  aspects  of  conscience  are  bound  perfectly 
to  harmonize;  that  we  cannot  be  favorably  re- 
lated to  the  Divine  spirit  for  example  save  in  so 
far  as  we  are  in  fraternal  relation  to  our  neighbor; 
and  bids  us  look  for  this  great  result  exclusively 
to  that  majestic  spiritual  Providence  which  co- 
ordinates self-love  with  brotherly  love,  and  both 
with  universal  love,  in  the  unseen  heart  of  the 
race,  by  eventually  bringing  forth  a  perfect  soci- 
ety or  fellowship  of  men  upon  earth. 

But  let  us  proceed  to  justify  all  this  by  a  sys- 
tematic investigation  of  what  is  involved,  phil- 
osophically, in  the  idea  of  creation. 

It  is  obvious  even  to  a  superficial  regard  that 
creation  means,  on  the  part  of  the  creator,  the 
giving  being  or  substance  to  what  is  intrinsically 
void  of  being  or  substance,  to  what  in  itself  or 
subjectively  is  void  of  life. 

And  implying  thus  much  on  the  part  of  the 
creator,  it  is  almost  equally  obvious  that  the 
term  cannot  help  implying,  on  the  part  of  the 
creature,  form  without  substance,  seeming  with- 
out being,  phenomenality  without  any  corres- 
ponding reality.  Because  if  the  creature  should 
involve  his  own  substance  as  well  as  his  own 
form,  he  would  be  uncreated :  /.  e.  would  re- 
pugn that  intrinsic  destitution  of  being  or  sub- 
stance which  is  implied  in  his  creation,  or  his 
deriving  being  from  another  than  himself  In 
order  to  the  veracity  of  creation  then,  the  crea- 
ture must  be  a  purely  phenomenal  existence,  a 
purely  subjective  form  :  in  other  words  his  sub- 


264        //  is  the  giving  inward  Substance 

jectivity  must  alienate  its  own  proper  objectiv- 
ity, or  refer  it  to  another  than  himself;  so  con- 
fessing itself  a  merely  conscious  or  finite  exist- 
ence. 

Accordingly  we  may  define  creation  generally 
as  the  giving  invisible  inward  being  or  substance 
to  what  in-itself  is  a  pure  form  or  appearance 
of  being. 

Does  the  term  imply  anything  definite,  in  re- 
spect to  the  nature  of  the  life  or  being  thus 
communicated  by  the  creator  to  the  creature '? 

No.  It  merely  implies  that  the  life  or  being, 
thus  communicated,  will  be  proportionate  in 
every  case  to  the  power  that  gives.  The  crea- 
tor can  only  give  the  life  or  being  which  he 
himself  is.  If  he  be  himself  a  finite  imperfect 
being,  he  can  only  impart  a  similar  being  to  his 
creature.  If  on  the  other  hand  he  be  an  infinite 
or  perfect  being,  he  will  be  sure  to  impart  a  sim- 
ilar,jnfinitude  or  perfection  to  his  creatures. 
Being  himself  infinite  and  eternal ;  or  possessing 
a  life  wholly  above  the  limitations  of  space  and 
the  mutations  of  time,  that  is  to  say,  a  strictly 
spiritual  life;  the  being  or  life  which  he  gives 
his  creature  cannot  help  turning  out  strictly  pro- 
portionate, ;.  e.  cannot  help  being  itself  spiritual. 
In  short :  if  the  creator  in  question  be  a  man, 
then  inasmuch  as  his  creature  can  only  reflect 
his  proper  finiteness  or  imperfection,  it  will  en- 
joy a  wholly  finite  or  imperfect  existence.  If 
on  the  other  hand  the  creator  in  question  be 
God,  then  creation  (as  meaning  the  alienation 
of  His  own  infinite  being,  of  His  own  perfect 


to  what  in  itself  is  pure  Form.  26 j; 

life,  or  the  communication  of  it  to  another  than 
Himself;)  of  course  interprets  itself  into  a  rigid 
equation  of  infinite  and  finite  :  /.  e.  announces 
itself,  on  God's  part,  as  the  giving  infinitude  or 
perfection  to  what  is  essentially  finite  or  imper- 
fect, simply  by  means  of  the  creature,  on  his 
part,  becoming  aware  of  his  essential  finiteness, 
or  attaining  to  the  consciousness  of  his  intrinsic 
imperfection,  of  his  proper  want  or  destitution. 

We  have  now  got  a  sufSciently  comprehen- 
sive notion  of  what  is  meant  by  creation  ;  and 
this  being  the  case,  two  observations  of  the  deep- 
est philosophic  interest  will  at  once  force  them- 
selves upon  the  reader's  attention. 

I.  The  first  observation  (which  elucidates  the 
genesis  of  consciousness)  is  as  follows :  Inas- 
much as  it  is  logically  implied  in  all  creation 
that  the  thing  created  have  an  intrinsic  dearth 
of  life  or  destitution  of  being,  which  alone  qual- 
ifies it  for  the  reception  of  such  life  or  being, 
so  consequently  this  logical  implication  exacts 
the  creature's  finite  embodiment,  his  conscious- 
ness of  want,  of  limitation,  of  imperfection,  as 
its  own  corresponding  explication.  For  finite 
existence,  which  is  limitation  in  space  and  time, 
alone  expresses  that  intrinsic  dearth  of  life  which 
characterizes  the  creature,  and  alone  supplies 
therefore  that  unchangeable  basis  of  identity, 
upon  which  his  individuality  is  suspended.  Ob- 
viously unless  the  creature's  intrinsic  destitution 
become  phenomenally  organized  to  his  own 
perception,  he  will  never  attain  to  veracious 
consciousness,  and  will  consequently  fail  of  that 


266  Our  suljetiive  History  implied 

discrimination  from  his  creator,  on  which  the 
_^ntire  truth  of  his  creation  is  grounded.  What 
the  creature  is  in-himself  or  essentially,  must 
become  phenomenally  organized  to  his  own 
experience,  in  order  to  his  having  any  conscious- 
ness, or  before  he  can  claim  thatj)rojectic)n  frpng.^ 
his  creator  which  makes  existence  or  anything 
else  predicable  of  him.  And  finite  existence, 
existence  in  time  and  space,  alone  expresses 
what  the  creature  is  in-himself  or  essentially, 
namely:  a  form  of  universal  destitution  and 
hence  of  dependence  upon  what  is  not  him- 
self 

For  example  :  we  say  the  sculptor  creates  the 
statue,  or  gives  it  being.  But  manifestly  it  is 
implied  in  this  observation  that  marble  or  some 
other  material  exist  to  embody  the  statue,  or 
give  it  subjective  constitution.  Otherwise  it 
would  never  get  that  objective  projection  from 
its  creator's  brain  which  makes  it  a  true  creation, 
and  not  a  mere  imagination.  The  sculptor  can- 
not even  conceive  the  statue  without  an  implica- 
tion of  the  purely  subjective  or  constitutional 
material  by  means  of  which  he  is  to  give  it 
visible  existence  :  much  less  of  course  could 
he  execute  it  without  such  implication.  It  is 
often  loosely  said  that  the  statue  exists  in  the 
sculptor's  brain,  or  in  idea,  before  it  exists  in 
marble.  No  doubt  it  exists  potentially  in  the 
sculptor's  brain,  just  as  the  child  exists  poten- 
tially in  the  loins  of  its  father.  But  this 
potency  plainly  becomes  converted  into  act- 
uality  only    by    the    intervention    of    the    mar- 


in  our  uhjeBive  Creation.  lb-j 

ble  in  the  one  case,  and  of  the  mother  in  the 
other. 

Bodily  existence,  then,  phenomenal  subjectiv- 
ity, finite  consciousness,  on  the  part  of  the  crea- 
ture, is  philosophically  implied  or  presupposed 
in  the  being  which  is  given  it  by  the  creator  : 
just  as  the  materials  of  a  house  are  implied  or 
presupposed  in  the  house  itself  A  house  with- 
out any  constitutional  substance  to  embody  it, 
or  give  it  phenomenal  and  subjective  identity 
with  other  houses,  would  lack  all  real  individu- 
ality or  objective  distinction  from  other  houses; 
i.  e.  would  be  no  house  :  for  subjective  identity 
or  community  is  the  necessary  basis  of  all  ob- 
jective diversity  or  individuality.  Precisely  so 
an  unembodied  creature  of  God  —  a  creature 
without  existence  in  space  and  time  —  would 
be  destitute  both  of  sense  and  reason ;  would 
be  unconscious  and  non-existent  ;  because  it 
would  lack  that  fundamental  subjective  identity 
with  other  existence  which  is  the  sole  ground 
of  its  real  or  objective  discrimination. 

So  much  for  the  first  observation. 

II.  The  second  observation  (which  is  com- 
pletely fatal  to  Kant's  conception  of  the  reality 
of  things  as  pertaining  to  the  things  in-them- 
selves)  is  as  follows:  K  thus  much  be  implied 
in  the  creation  of  anything,  namely,  that  the 
thing  exist  in  finite  phenomenal  form  in  order 
to  give  it  conscious  identity,  or  projection  from 
its  creative  source  :  then  clearly  anything  more 
than  this  becomes  rigidly  excluded.  Because 
if  in  order  to  a  thing's  being  created  or  truly 


268  Our  Suhjctlivity  necessarily 

existing,  the  thing  should  claim  as  Kant  alleges 
not  phenomenal  but  noumenal  existence,  not 
finite  but  infinite  substance  :  in  other  words,  if 
the  thing  should  possess  in-itself  not  subjective 
or  phenomenal  identity  with  all  other  things, 
but  objective  or  infinite  distinction  from  all 
other  things,  it  must  of  course  exclude  all  other 
things,  and  avouch  itself  essentially  underived 
or  uncreated.  In  other  words  still :  if,  as  Kant 
alleges,  a  thing  requires,  in  order  truly  to  be,  to 
possess  in-itself  infinitude  or  absoluteness,  then 
of  course  everything  that  truly  is  derides  the 
imputation  of  creation  ;  since  what  is  in-itself 
infinite  and  absolute,  is  uncreated ;  is,  in  fact, 
God. 

Now  what  is  the  philosophic  moral  of  these 
two  observations?  It  is  that  the  sole  realm  of 
reality  for  man  is  the  realm  of  consciousness ; 
that  we  have  absolutely  no  life  or  being  in  our- 
selves which  is  not  based  primarily  upon  that 
natural  community  or  identity  which  we  share 
with  all  other  creatures.  In  other  words  finite 
or  phenomenal  being  is  essential  to  the  crea- 
ture, is  what  gives  him  identity  to  his  own  con- 
sciousness, or  separates  him  from  the  creator : 
so  that  to  suppose  him  possessing  any  being 
or  life  in-himself  and  apart  from  his  kind,  is 
to  suppose  him  unconscious,  non-existent,  dead. 
The  regulative  consideration  on  all  this  topic 
is,  that  creation  is  a  strictly  subjective  work  of 
God,  a  work  flowing  from  the  very  infinitude 
of  His  love,  or  His  incapacity  to  love  Himself, 
and  hence  demanding  an  exclusively  foreign  or 


devoid  of  iis  own  Obje^ivity.  269 

external  objectivity.  The  work  consists  rigidly 
in  His  giving  life  or  being — /.  e.  inasmuch  as 
He  is  Himself  life  or  being,  in  His  giving 
Himself — to  what  is  not  Himself,  to  what  is 
indeed  directly  antagonistic  to  Himself  This 
being  the  case,  the  question  at  once  arises  :  How 
in  this  state  of  things  is  it  possible  for  the  crea- 
ture himself  to  attain  to  valid  selfhood,  to  a 
true  subjectivity,  to  a  veracious  consciousness  ? 
If  by  the  strict  necessity  of  the  case  the  work 
of  creation  be  a  purely  subjective  proceeding  on 
God's  part,  what  shall  hinder  His  subjectivity 
swallowing  up  or  dominating  that  of  the  crea- 
ture ?  Where  will  you  fix  rhe  line  of  demar- 
cation which  shall  preserve  the  creature  from 
confounding  himself  with  the  creator,  which 
shall  say  here  ends  the  creator,  here  begins  the 
creature  ?  How  in  short  shall  the  creature  se- 
cure that  necessary  projection  from  his  creative 
source,  which  alone  makes  creation  an  actual 
reality,  and  saves  it  from  the  obscene  jaws  of 
Pantheism  *? 

You  see  at  a  glance  that  the  difficulty  here 
alleged  is  fatal,  if  you  regard  the  created  sub- 
jectivity as  possessing  in-itself  any  objectivity : 
if  you  regard  the  creature  as  possessing  in-him- 
self  anything  but  a  conscious  life  or  reality. 
But  if  on  the  other  hand  the  creature  be  purely 
phenomenal ;  if  he  have  no  existence  out  of 
consciousness;  if  he  be  a  mere  subjective  form 
or  appearance  to  himself,  without  any  corre- 
sponding objective  substance  or  reality  :  then  the 
difficulty  at  once  vanishes,  because  there  is  noth- 


270  Kant  refi/tes  Creation  by  the 

ing  here  alleged  to  conflict  with  the  creative 
subjectivity.  So  long  as  the  creature's  existence 
is  confined  to  the  realm  of  consciousness,  the 
finite  or  phenomenal  realm,  it  does  not  impinge 
of  course  upon  the  realm  of  being,  or  of  that 
infinite  and  absolute  reality  which  is  God.  It 
may  indeed  expand  and  expatiate  in  this  field 
to  any  extent,  or  assert  itself  with  ever  augment- 
ing confidence  and  boldness,  and  yet  incur  no 
other  risk  than  that  of  an  ever  increasing  spirit- 
ual remoteness  from  God. 

This  brief  analysis  of  what  is  implied  in  the 
general  idea  of  creation,  will  enable  the  reader 
to  estimate  the  gross  treachery  to  Philosophy, 
considered  as  the  science  of  being,  which  is  in- 
volved in  Kant's  atrocious  figm.ent  of  noumenal 
existence.  Kant  feigns  a  world  of  unknown 
substance  with  no  other  end  than  to  invalidate 
human  knowledge,  and  so  undermine  human 
belief  in  that  known  Divine  substance  to  which 
unsophisticated  minds  universally  ascribe  crea- 
tion. He  postulates  an  essentially  incognizable 
and  therefore  dishonest  world  as  the  only  real 
one,  in  order  that  that  which  is  essentially  cog- 
nizable and  therefore  honest  may  be  forced  to 
confess  itself  a  cheat.  He  abstracts  reality  from 
things  themselves,  the  only  things  that  ever  have 
existed  or  ever  can  exist,  in  order  to  bestow  it 
upon  a  set  of  thankless  ghosts  which  he  calls 
"  things-in-themselves,"  but  which  never  have 
existed  and  never  can  exist.  What  Kant  and 
Sir  William  Hamilton  call  "real"  things,  "nou- 
menal "  things,  or  "  things-in-themselves,"  are  in 


Fitlion  of  noumcnal  Existence.  271 

truth  things  which  involve  their  own  substance, 
thus  which  are  self-existent  or  infinite  and 
hence  uncreated.  It  would  be  sheerly  idle  then 
to  predicate  creatureship  of  "•  real "  or  "  noume- 
nal  "  things,  because  in  the  first  place  we  can 
never  know  whether  or  not  they  so  much  as 
exist ;  and  in  the  second  place  if  they  do  exist 
they  will  be  sure  to  exclude  creation :  since 
created  things  never  involve  their  own  sub- 
stance or  selfhood,  but  on  the  contrary  evolve 
it  by  diligently  acknowledging  what  is  not 
themselves. 

"  Real "  existence  being  thus  summarily  dis- 
posed of  on  the  Kantian  hypothesis,  how  fares 
it  in  turn  with  phenomenal  existence  ?  Has  the 
phenomenon  any  surer  title  to  creation  than  the 
noumenon  *?  If  we  abandon  "  real  "  existence 
to  Kant  as  uncreated,  shall  we  not,  d  fortiori  in- 
deed, be  obliged  to  abandon  phenomenal  exist- 
ence to  the  same  ruthless  negation  ?  Unques- 
tionably. For  if  existence  be  real  only  in  so  far 
as  it  involves  its  own  substance,  or  is  infinite, 
then  clearly  phenomenal  existence  in  confessing 
itself  finite,  proclaims  itself  unreal ;  and  it  would 
be  folly  to  allege  creation  of  what  is  unreal.  In 
order  that  a  thing  should  confess  itself  created, 
it  must  exist  either  consciously  to  itself  or  visi- 
bly to  others  ;  /.  e.  must  exhibit  subjective  iden- 
tity with  other  existence.  But  what  Kant  calls 
phenomenal  existence  is  destitute  even  of  this 
subjective  reality,  repugns  all  manner  of  identity 
whether  that  of  consciousness  to  itself  or  visi- 
bihty  to  others,  and  hence  of  course  cannot  be 


272  Sir  PPlllia?n  Hamilton  hereupon 

created.  The  phenomenon  according  to  Kant 
is  what  does  not  exist  in-itself  or  subjectively, 
but  only  in  relation  to  some  extraneous  intelli- 
gence, or  objectively.  The  noumenon  on  the 
other  hand  is  what  does  exist  in-itself  or  sub- 
jectively, and  therefore  has  no  relation'  to  any 
outlying  intelligence,  consequently  is  destitute 
of  objective  truth.  Thus  the  defect  of  "real" 
existence  in  Kant's  view  is,  that  it  is  objectively 
unrelated  or  non-existent,  and  hence  declines 
"the  soft  impeachment"  of  creation  ;  while  that 
of  phenomenal  existence  is,  that  it  is  subjectively 
unrelated  or  non-existent,  and  hence  makes  that 
impeachment  sheerly  ludicrous.  In  fine  "real" 
existence  has  no  need  to  be  created,  because  it 
exists  absolutely  and  amply  "in-itsel£"  And 
phenomenal  existence  has  no  capacity  to  be  cre- 
ated, because  it  does  not  exist  in-itself  Poor  cre- 
ation accordingly  is  left  shivering  for  a  customer; 
perishes  miserably  between  one  set  of  subjects 
who  are  too  rich  to  need  its  services,  and  another 
set  who  are  too  poor  to  purchase  them  :  and  this 
mousing  owl  of  science  has  been  fluttering  and 
'fooling  all  our  intellectual  dove-cotes  ever  since, 
as  the  lordly  eagle  of  Philosophy  ! 

Or  to  express  the  result  more  succinctly.  "Real" 
things,  considered  as  involving  their  own  sub- 
stance, do  not  exist,  being  prevented  doing  so 
by  their  very  reality.  And  phenomenal  things, 
being  by  this  definition  unreal,  are  only  the  more 
forcibly  forbidden  to  exist  by  their  own  unreality. 
For  if  we  cannot  admit  "  real "  things  to  exist, 
it  would  be  highly  indecorous  to  admit  "  unreal" 


degrades  Philosophy  into  Snivel.  273 

ones  to  that  distinction ;  unless  indeed  we  wish 
to  prove  creation  itself  a  sham.  In  either  case 
alike  then  we  get  rid  of  existence,  and  hence  of 
creation,  as  an  "  imbecility  "  of  the  uncultivated 
understanding ;  and  become  qualified  at  last  with 
Sir  William  Hamilton  to  turn  Philosophy  her- 
self as  the  voucher  of  creation,  into  a  snivelling 
idiot  whining  over  "  doubt  as  the  beginning  and 
end  of  knowledge." 


iS 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

The  least  attention  to  the  foregoing  criticism 
will  show,  that  Kant's  philosophic  weakness  lay 
in  his  habitually  confounding  that  which  consti- 
tutes a  thing  or  gives  it  identity,  with  that  which 
creates  it  or  gives  it  individuality.  He  invari- 
ably confounded  the  subjective  constitution  of 
existence,  or  what  gives  it  phenomenal  con- 
sciousness, with  its  objective  reality,  or  what 
gives  it  spiritual  and  unconscious  being.  Surely 
my  body,  though  it  constitute  me  to  my  own 
perception,  though  it  give  me  identity  or  render 
me  conscious,  is  not  what  creates  me,  or  gives 
me  absolute  individuality,  that  is,  being  irre- 
spective of  my  consciousness.  A  neutral  salt  in 
order  to  its  own  identity  constitutionally  in- 
volves an  acid  and  a  base.  But  he  would  be 
a  sorry  philosopher,  though  he  bore  the  re- 
nowned name  of  Sir  William  Hamilton,  who 
should  thereupon  allege  that  the  acid  and  the 
alkali  not  merely  constituted  the  salt,  /'.  e.  gave 
it  body,  or  material  identity  with  all  other  things, 
but  also  created  it,  /.  e.  gave  it  soul,  or  spiritual 
diversity  from  all  other  things.  What  gives  the 
salt  visible  body  or  phenomenal  identity  with 
all  other  things,  so  rendering  it  appreciable  to 
our  science,  is  the  acid  and  alkali  involved  in 


Constitution  is  not  Chara£ier.  275 

its  physical  constitution.  But  what  gives  the 
salt  invisible  soul  or  absolute  individuality,  for- 
ever differencing  it  from  all  other  things,  is  ex- 
clusively the  power  which  it  exerts  over  other 
existence,  notably  the  power  of  neutralizing  its 
own  constitutional  elements,  and  exalting  them 
to  issues  to  which  in  themselves  they  would  be 
wholly  incompetent.  In  like  manner  precisely 
what  constitutes  me  to  my  own  intelligence,  or 
gives  me  conscious  identity,  is  not  merely  totally 
distinct  from,  but  is  totally  opposite  and  subor- 
dinate to,  what  creates  me  or  gives  me  individu- 
ality, /.  e.  being  irrespective  of  my  conscious- 
ness. Nature  finites  or  fixes  me,  that  is.  gives 
me  bodily  identity  or  consciousness.  God  alone 
in-finites  or  unfixes  me,  by  giving  me  spiritual 
individuality  or  unconscious  being.  In  a  word: 
whatsoever  falls  within  the  realm  of  conscious- 
ness, or  is  embraced  within  the  sphere  of  our 
subjectivity,  possesses  a  merely  constitutional 
force,  and  denies  itself  any  creative  significance. 
Its  total  virtue  lies  in  giving  us  subjective  or 
conscious  identity  with  all  other  existence,  and 
to  that  extent  of  course  in  denying  us  objective 
diversity  or  individuality. 

Kant  seems  never  to  have  suspected  the  pos- 
sibility of  this  discrimination.  He  thought  that 
the  reality  of  things  was  subjective  as  well  as 
their  phenomenality ;  that  the  constitution  of 
things  or  what  gave  them  body,  was  also  what 
created  them  or  gave  them  soul ;  that  their  nat- 
ural identity  was  one  with  their  spiritual  individ- 
uality ;  that  the  subject  indeed  involved  its  own 


276  Kant  habitually  confounds 

object,  having  power  to  turn  Itself  outside-in 
and  inside-out  at  pleasure.  He  conceives  that 
substance  or  life  is  created  as  vi^ell  as  form  or 
appearance  ;  hence  that  no  visible  phenomenon 
exists  which  is  not  haunted  by  its  invisible  nou- 
menon  sapping  its  existence,  deriding  its  verac- 
ity, turning  its  life  into  a  mockery  and  delusion. 
But  in  this  judgment  Kant  only  echoes  the  vul- 
garest  of  prejudices  :  exalts  that  prejudice  indeed 
into  the  topmost  inspiration  of  Philosophy. 
Every  one  naturally  supposes  (and  learns  other- 
wise only  by  virtue  of  a  sheer  intellectual  cul- 
ture, giving  him  life  out  of  death,  light  out  of 
darkness)  that  whatsoever  exists  is  its  own  dis- 
tinct substance  as  well  as  its  own  distinct  form : 
its  own  finite  soul  as  well  as  its  own  finite  body: 
thus  that  there  are  as  many  distinct  (though  to 
us  invisible)  substances,  as  many  finite  souls,  in 
the  universe,  as  there  are  distinct  finite  forms  or 
bodies  :  so  conceiving  of  creation  as  presenting 
to  God's  mind  the  same  substantial  divisibility, 
the  same  inward  finiteness  and  relativity,  which 
our  own  limited  consciousness  confers  upon  it. 

This  is  why  the  popular  theology,  which  is 
the  formal  application  of  sensuous  prejudice  to 
the  highest  themes,  interprets  creation  not  as  an 
honest  hearty  function  of  the  Divine  subjectiv- 
ity really  producing  life  out  of  death,  good  out 
of  evil,  but  as  an  act  of  mere  ostentatious  or 
brute  omnipotence  on  God's  part,  an  act  of  pure 
magic  or  sleight  of  hand,  discharging  us  of  all 
rational  or  reflective  admiration  towards  Him, 
and  bringing  us  into  the  base  servile  attitude  of 


Constitution  and  Creation.  277 

interested  hope  or  fear.  And  this  again  teach- 
es us  why  the  scientific  reason  in  man,  which 
proceeds  upon  the  observation  of  a  strict  rela- 
tionship amongst  all  finite  things,  finds  itself 
at  eternal  loggerheads  with  religion.  For  if  the 
differences  which  I  with  my  finite  intelligence 
discern  between  Brown  Jones  and  Robinson, 
go  on  ad  infinitvm.^  or  find  themselves  authenti- 
cated by  the  Divine  intelligence  equally,  it  will 
be  idle  to  seek  out  that  common  starting  point 
or  basis  of  identity  which  science  declares  they 
all  have  :  since  their  contrariety  is  objective  as 
well  as  subjective,  substantial  as  well  as  formal ; 
a  fact  of  being  no  less  than  of  seeming ;  an  in- 
finite fact  no  less  than  a  finite  one  ;  absolute  no 
less  than  relative.  Brown  Jones  and  Robinson 
are  not  merely  disunited  streams ;  they  claim 
also  a  disunited  origin  or  source  ;  disavow  natu- 
ral community  or  identity  as  well  as  spiritual 
unity  or  individuality ;  and  hence  make  science 
impossible  and  Philosophy  absurd.-^ 

Idealism,  which  is  the  pretension  of  an  ideal 
or  noumenal  world  to  constitute  the  basis  of  the 
actual  or  phenomenal  world,  to  give  it  real  sub- 
stance or  selfhood,  has  been  the  disease  of  Phi- 
losophy from  Plato  down  to  Hegel,  who  makes 
God  himself  derive  existence  from  the  Idea,  or 

'  Hegel's    Idealism   is   an   at-  confounds  mere  natural  identity 

tempt    to    rescue    science   from  with  spiritual  individuality  :  but 

Kant's    destructive    clutch,    by  it  is  clearly  only  a  dodge,  for  the 

identifying    being    and    thought,  misconception  is  left  untouched. 

It  is  a  clever  dodge  of  the  seri-  is    indeed    authenticated    to    the 

ous    difficulties    engendered     by  extent  of  organizing  a  remorse- 

the    fundamental    misconception  less  Pantheism, 
of    Natural     Theology,    which 


2/8         Idealism  the  hane  of  Philosophy 

confess  Himself  contingent  upon  the  contrariety 
of  being  and  not  being.  This  alone  is  what 
has  given  Philosophy  that  cramp  in  the  intes- 
tines which  has  forbidden  her  hitherto  for  one 
moment  to  stand  upright  or  put  a  foot  forward ; 
and  which  now  at  last  under  the  auspices  of 
German  and  Scotch  doctors,  drives  her  to  un- 
principled and  even  jaunty  suicide.  She  has 
been  feeding  upon  wind,  and  her  condition  is 
one  of  chronic  indigestion  and  atrophy.  She 
believes  in  ghosts  in  short,  which  is  the  last  gasp 
of  intellectual  imbecility;  the  ghost  of  a  sub- 
stance without  any  form,  of  a  reality  without 
any  phenomenality,  of  a  soul  without  any  body: 
and  her  poor  old  eyes  accordingly  are  bleared 
for  lack  of  vision,  and  her  poor  old  jaws  agape 
for  very  emptiness.  She  has  been  incessantly 
haunted  by  this  flatulent  abstraction  of  a  sub- 
stantial world  apart  from  the  phenomenal  one, 
of  a  soul  in  things  utterly  incommensurate  with 
their  body.  And  consequently  instead  of  re- 
garding the  senses  as  a  solid  floor  of  knowledge 
whereupon  to  erect  any  aspiring  edifice  of  belief 
however  lofty,  she  has  altogether  rejected  them 
as  absolutely  misleading  and  good-for-nothing, 
and  so  allowed  the  whole  majestic  heavens  of 
our  faith  to  fall  through. 

Swedenborg  extinguishes  this  shallow  scio- 
lism by  solidly  vindicating  the  philosophic  basis 
of  creation.  While  these  renowned  pilots  of 
Philosophy,  by  systematically  ignoring  the  stars, 
or  refusing  to  consult  the  light  of  Revelation, 
have  managed  to  wreck  the  priceless  bark  they 


from  Plato  down  to  our  own  day.       2J9 

assumed  to  bring  to  port,  and  spill  its  jewelled 
freight  into  the  sea,  he  has  opened  an  endless 
pathway  to  her  by  demonstrating  that  the  sole 
real  existence  —  the  only  possible  ground  of 
consciousness  —  for  the  creature  qua  a  creature, 
is  phenomenal,  thus  scourging  the  conception 
of  noumenal  existence  forever  out  of  sight. 
He  establishes  beyond  the  possibility  of  rational 
cavil,  that  the  pretension  of  noumenal  existence 
on  the  part  of  a  creature,  /.  e.  the  pretension 
to  possess  existence  in-himself,  is  absurd  or 
contradictory;  and  so  turns  Philosophy  from  a 
suicidal  chase  of  phantoms,  into  a  living  and 
loving  recognition  of  the  Infinite  within  the 
very  bosom  of  the  finite,  of  the  Absolute  within 
the  very  lap  of  the  relative.  He  exhausts  the 
philosophic  realm  of  its  ontological  mummery, 
by  proving  phenomenal  or  finite  existence  to  be 
the  only  existence  possible  to  a  creature ;  by 
proving  in  other  words  that  the  creature  simply 
because  he  is  a  creature,  cannot  have  in-himself 
anything  but  a  conscious,  that  is,  subjective  or 
phenomenal  being.  He  must  have  as  much  as 
this,  must  have  at  least  a  subjective  or  phenome- 
nal consciousness,  in  order  to  his  realizing  the 
objective  being  he  has  in  God.  He  can  have 
no  more  than  this,  under  penalty  manifestly  of 
excluding  the  Divine  communication.  This 
vindication  of  our  natural  life  or  selfhood  as 
the  fixed  basis  and  anchorage  of  our  subsequent 
spiritual  evolution  ;  this  positing  of  our  natural 
identity  as  the  sole  conceivable  ground  of  our 
subsequent  unlimited  spiritual  expansion  :  con- 


280  Swedenborg  puts  an  End 

stitutes  Swedenborg's  transcendent  claim  upon 
philosophic  consideration  ;  the  greatest  service  in 
my  opinion  ever  rendered  to  Philosophy  since  the 
dawn  of  human  intelligence.  For  by  this  one 
service  he  has  put  the  veracity  of  our  knowl- 
edge upon  an  inexpugnable  basis,  and  thereby 
forever  authenticated  every  tenderest  and  most 
filial  hope  and  aspiration  of  the  soul  towards 
God.  His  doctrine  on  this  subject  is  entitled 
to  the  reader's  profoundest  acceptance.  It  con- 
stitutes the  actual  break  of  day  to  every  intelli- 
gence palsied  by  the  darkness  of  Philosophy; 
the  cheerful  cockcrow  whose  inspiring  note  dis- 
perses every  ghastly  phantom  of  that  imbecile 
administration.  And  I  should  be  forever  recon- 
ciled to  my  own  poverty  of  wit,  if  it  would 
only  permit  me  to  convey  to  the  reader's  under- 
standing any  portion  of  the  solid  peace  and  re- 
creation, any  portion  of  the  generous  "  board 
and  lodging  "  which,  in  a  philosophic  sense,  the 
commanding  truth  in  question  habitually  yields 
to  mine. 

But  before  proceeding  systematically  to  vindi- 
cate Swedenborg's  immortal  services  to  Philoso- 
phy, I  should  like  on  every  account  clearly  to 
establish  to  the  reader's  apprehension  the  delin- 
quency of  our  existing  Philosophy  to  her  own 
aims.  After  that  we  shall  be  better  able  to  esti- 
mate the  help  Swedenborg  brings  us. 

Incontestably  the  least  exceptionable  witness 
we  can  summon  in  all  things  relating  to  the  past 
or  present  status  of  our  recognized  Philosophy, 
is   Sir  William  Hamilton :  and  he   testifies   by 


to  philosophic   'Empiricism.  281 

her  inspiration  that  we  are  incapable  of  arriving 
at  any  real  knowledge  of  truth  natural  or  truth 
revealed. 

"  Philosophy  "  he  maintains,  "  if  viewed  as 
more  than  a  science  of  the  conditioned  is  im- 
possible. We  can  never  in  our  highest  gener- 
alizations rise  above  the  finite ;  our  knowledge 
whether  of  mind  or  matter  can  be  nothing  more 
than  a  knowledge  of  the  relative  manifestations 
of  an  existence  which  in  itself  it  is  our  highest 
wisdom  to  recognize  as  beyond  the  reach  of 
Philosophy,"^  "True  therefore  are  the  declara- 
tions of  a  pious  Philosophy :  a  God  understood 
would  be  no  God  at  all ;  to  think  that  God  is 
as  we  can  think  Him  to  be,  is  blasphemy.  The 
last  and  highest  consecration  of  all  true  religion 
must  be  an  altar :  to  the  unknown  and  unknow- 
able God."2 

This  darkens  even  the  darkness  of  Paganism 
which  inscribed  the  first  adjective,  or  declared 
God  unknown,  but  had  not  the  intolerable  pre- 
sumption to  add  the  second,  and  declare  Him 
also  unknowable, 

"  The  Infinite  and  Absolute  are  only  the 
names  of  two  counter  imbecilities  of  the  hu- 
man mind,  transmuted  into  properties  of  the 
nature  of  things;  of  two  subjective  negations 
transmuted  into  objective  affirmations."^ 

Surely  this  is  looking  the  enemy  very  full  in 
the  face.     But  Sir  William's  accomplished  dis- 

1  Discussions,  page  15.  also  the  Lectures  on  Metaphysics^ 

2  Ibidem.  Lectures  38  and  39. 

3  Ibidem,  page  21,  note.     See 


282  Hamilton  and  Mansel's 

ciple  and  literary  executor  manifests  at  least  an 
equal  pluck.  In  a  preface  to  the  third  edition  of 
his  Barnpton  Lectures,  Mr.  Mansel  in  combat- 
ing the  objection  that  by  denying  us  any  true 
knowledge  of  the  infinite  he  destroys  Revela- 
tion, says  :  "  The  objection  would  be  pertinent 
if  I  had  ever  maintained  that  Revelation  is  or 
can  be  a  direct  manifestation  of  the  infinite  na- 
ture of  God,  But  I  have  constantly  maintained 
the  very  reverse." 

The  only  conceivable  reverse  of  a  direct 
manifestation  of  God's  infinite  nature  is  a  di- 
rect manifestation  of  His  finite  nature.  Ac- 
cordingly Mr,  Mansel  proceeds :  "  In  Revela- 
tion as  in  Natural  Religion,  God  is  represented 
under  finite  conceptions  adapted  to  finite  minds," 
Now  not  to  pause  upon  the  left-handed  compli- 
ment here  incidentally  conveyed  to  Revelation, 
in  being  made  the  analogue  of  Natural  Religion, 
Mr,  Mansel  palpably  forgets  that  the  Christian 
Revelation  stands  embodied,  by  its  own  terms, 
not  in  any  conceptions  of  any  sort  which  are  at 
all  limitary  of  the  Divine  infinitude,  but  exclu- 
sively in  the  lineaments  of  a  life  so  perfect,  so 
infinite  in  the  truest  sense  of  the  word,  as  ration- 
ally to  avouch  itself  intimately  one  with,  and 
undistinguishable  from,  the  Divine  life.  The 
very  head  and  front  of  the  gospel  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  is,  that  in  this  crucified  and  risen 
man,  in  this  suffering  and  as  such  glorified  form, 
every  Divine  perfection  is  revealed  in  unblem- 
ished lustre,  so  that  he  who  sees  him  sees  the 
eternal  Father.     The  pretension  may  be  unfound- 


Testimony  to  Philosophy.  283 

ed  if  you  please  :  that  is  another  question :  but 
to  deny  that  it  was  distinctly  and  persistently 
made  by  Christ  and  his  apostles  is  very  unbe- 
coming Mr.  Mansel's  great  perspicacity. 

But  this  by  the  way.  Our  only  aim  at  pres- 
ent is  to  get  at  Mr.  Mansel's  profuse  and  unsus- 
pected testimony  to  the  growing  imbecility  of 
philosophic  speculation. 

As  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  limitation 
thus  put  upon  our  faculties,  according  to  Mr. 
Mansel,  by  Philosophy,  "  it  follows,"  he  goes  on 
to  allege  in  his  third  Lecture,  "  that  an  act  of 
creation  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  term,  that  is 
to  say,  an  absolutely  first  link  in  the  chain  of 
phenomena  preceded  by  no  temporal  antecedent 
is  to  human  thought  inconceivable." 

Why?  Certainly  not  because  there  is  any 
real  incongruity  between  the  truth  of  creation, 
philosophically  disengaged  from  sense,  and  our 
faculties ;  but  simply  because  the  view  which 
Mr.  Mansel  here  takes  of  creation,  as  a  physical 
rather  than  a  spiritual  procedure  of  God,  condi- 
tioned not  upon  the  heart  and  mind  of  man  but 
upon  the  laws  of  space  and  time,  is  itself  born 
of  sense  exclusively,  and  has  not  yet  undergone 
the  chastening  discipline  of  Philosophy.  Un- 
doubtedly an  act  of  creation  as  defined  by  Mr. 
Mansel,  or  as  taking  place  in  space  and  time,  is 
incredible  and  inconceivable,  because  space  and 
time  being  themselves  laws  of  a  finite  or  created 
intelligence,  must  of  necessity  fall  within  crea- 
tion and  never  outside  of  it.  The  scandal  is  that 
a  person   of  Mr.    Mansel's    merited    distinction 


284  They  make  it  an  cibjeB 

should  content  himself  with  that  childish  con- 
ception of  creation,  and  piously  stultify  both 
himself  and  his  readers  by  pretending  that  what 
is  intrinsically  out  of  all  relation  to  our  facul- 
ties may  yet  be  believed  by  them:  or  that  what 
is  inconceivable  may  still  be  credible. 

"  In  religion  "  proceeds  Mr.  Mansel,  "  in  mor- 
als, in  our  daily  business,  in  the  care  of  our  lives, 
in  the  exercise  of  our  senses,  the  rules  which  guide 
our  practice  cannot  be  reduced  to  principles  which 
satisfy  our  reason."^  In  other  words  it  is  the 
dictate  of  the  most  enlightened  Philosophy  that 
an  internecine  quarrel  exists  between  our  life  and 
our  understanding,  between  our  heart  and  our 
head.  Was  ever  before  so  palsying  a  conviction 
arrived  at  with  so  little  apparent  paralysis  either 
to  heart  or  head,  with  so  little  disturbance  to  the 
jocund  flow  of  life  ?  From  the  same  lecture  we 
learn  that  "  it  is  to  be  expected  that  our  apprehen- 
sion of  the  revealed  Deity  should  involve  myste- 
ries inscrutable  and  doubts  insoluble  by  our  pres- 
ent faculties;"  though  why  a  revelation  expressly 
made  by  God  himself  to  faculties  which  are  also 
God-made,  should  be  expected  to  deepen  the 
very  doubts,  and  darken  the  very  obscurities  it 
was  intended  fully  to  clear  up,  is  not,  to  say  the 
least,  strikingly  obvious. 

But  a  truce  to  quotation.  It  is  clear  enough 
from  what  we  have  already  seen,  that  Philosophy 
in  thus  dishonoring  her  own  function  is  obstinate- 
ly bent  on  suicide,  and  that  unless  the  mania  be 
promptly  arrested  at  its  source  we  shall  soon  be 

1  Lecture  V. 


Scepticism,  relieved  by  Cant.  285 

called  upon  to  furnish  her  with  a  tombstone  and 
epitaph.  Whence  then  does  the  mania  come?  It 
originates  avowedly  in  the  Kantian  contribution 
to  Philosophy :  and  a  critical  glance  in  that  di- 
rection will  help  us  to  see  not  only  how  greatly 
this  famous  Immanuel  Kant  betrayed  the  Chris- 
tian promise  of  his  name  in  attempting  to  unset- 
tle the  foundations  of  human  belief,  but  also 
how  unworthily  Sir  William  Hamilton  and  (es- 
pecially) Mr.  Mansel  have  acted  in  devoting 
their  shining  abilities  not  to  the  exposure  and 
correction  of  that  foolish  work,  but  to  its  per- 
petuation and  extension. 


CHAPTER   XVII. 

The  important  addition  which  Kant  nnade  to 
Philosophy  consists  in  a  new  analysis  of  knowl- 
edge, which  gives  its  subjective  element  as  he 
conceives  it,  the  decided  primacy  of  what  he 
calls  its  objective  element.  The  old  Philosophy 
erred  in  his  estimation  by  allowing  the  matter 
of  knowledge  as  constituted  by  the  various 
things  we  are  said  to  know,  to  preponderate 
over  its  form  as  constituted  by  our  sensibility 
and  intelligence.  And  by  exactly  reversing  this 
order  he  thought  he  had  succeeded  in  rectifying 
metaphysics,  and  earning  the  name  of  a  philo- 
sophic Copernicus.  The  name  is  singularly  ill- 
adjusted  however,  since  Kant's  rectification  of 
the  old  metaphysics  consists  in  making  us  the 
centre  of  intellectual  movement  and  all  other 
things  circumferential  to  us  ;  while  the  rectifica- 
tion which  Copernicus  operated  in  the  popular 
astronomy  altogether  consisted  in  placing  us  in 
the  circumference  of  physical  motion,  and  re- 
moving its  focus  to  the  greatest  possible  distance 
from  us.  This  is  Kant's  initial  blunder,  his  un- 
pardonable sin  to  Philosophy,  that  like  a  geogra- 
pher who  confounds  the  mouth  of  a  river  with 
its  source  he  makes  our  knowledge  take  its  rise 
in  us  as  well  as  issue  from  us,  and  hence  denies 


Kant's  Jnalysis  of  Knowledge.  287 

it  any  absolute  validity.  Ever  since  his  time 
accordingly  Philosophy  has  been  playing  such 
fantastic  tricks  before  high  heaven,  here  deifying 
all  things,  there  denying  any  Deity,  as  to  degrade 
herself  to  the  level  of  a  common  brawler,  unfit 
any  longer  to  occupy  attention. 

But  let  us  look  more  closely  at  the  matter  In 
hand. 

"All  knowledge  is  a  product  of  two  factors, 
a  knowing  subject,  and  an  external  world.  Of 
these  two  factors  the  latter  furnishes  our  knowl- 
edge with  experience  as  the  matter,  and  the  for- 
mer with  the  conceptions  of  the  understanding 
as  the  form,  through  which  a  connected  knowl- 
edge —  or  synthesis  of  our  perceptions  in  a  whole 
of  experience  —  first  becomes  possible.  If  there 
were  no  external  world,  then  there  would  be  no 
phenomena ;  if  there  were  no  understanding, 
then  these  phenomena  which  are  infinitely  mani- 
fold would  never  be  brought  into  the  unity  of  a 
notion,  and  then  no  experience  were  possible. 
Thus  while  intuitions  without  conceptions  are 
blind,  and  conceptions  without  intuitions  are 
empty,  knowledge  is  a  union  of  the  two.  since 
it  requires  that  the  form  of  the  conception  should 
be  filled  with  the  matter  of  experience,  and  that 
the  matter  of  experience  should  be  apprehended 
in  the  net  of  the  understanding's  conceptions."^ 

We  have  not  yet  got  the  entire  corpus  delist 
under  our  view,  but  let  us  pause  here  to  estab- 
lish a  i^vf  preliminary  considerations,  which  go  to 

1  I  quote  from  Schwegler's  of  Philosophy^  translated  by  Ju- 
excellent  manual  of  The  History     lius  H.  Seelye,  pp.  230,  231. 


288      He  makes  it  a  Fa5l  of  Constitution^ 

prove  this  elaborate  pedantry  a  pure  superfluity, 
so  far  as  the  fact  of  knowledge  is  concerned. 

Doubtless  the  foregoing  analysis  does  convey 
a  sort  of  general  predicament  of  the  great  fact 
of  knowledge ;  such  a  predicament  as  you  put 
a  coat  in,  logically,  when  you  mention  a  tailor 
and  a  piece  of  cloth.  Every  coat  of  course 
logically  pre-dicates  a  tailor  and  a  piece  of  cloth, 
but  you  convey  a  very  inadequate  notion  of  the 
actual  garment  by  enumerating  these  purely  con- 
stitutional elements  of  it.  I  utterly  refuse  to 
conceive  the  coat  upon  such  niggardly  terms.  I 
am  free  to  admit  that  the  tailor  and  the  cloth  are 
necessary  data  of  the  coat,  are  logically  implied 
in  its  constitution  :  but  this  sort  of  knowledge 
is  purely  scientific  as  interesting  only  the  tailor 
and  manufacturer,  and  not  philosophic  as  inter- 
esting all  mankind.  As  a  philosopher  I  am  not 
concerned  to  ask  what  gives  the  garment  phe- 
nomenality,  but  only  what  gives  it  being.  In 
other  words  I  do  not  ask  what  makes  the  gar- 
ment, /.  e.  what  elements  enter  into  its  material 
constitution;  but  only  what  creates  it  or  gives  it 
absolute  existence.  The  coat  itself  or  spiritual- 
ly, i.  e.  in  the  use  or  power  it  exerts,  is  some- 
thing very  different  and  superior  to  the  material 
elements  which  go  to  constitute  it:  it  indeed 
involves  (or  presupposes)  these  elements,  and 
can  therefore  never  be  involved  in  them.  The 
coat  when  truly  conceived,  when  conceived  as  a 
finished  garment,  causes  both  the  tailor  and  the 
piece  of  cloth  to  disappear  in  the  bosom  of  its 
own  unity  or  individuality,  whence  they  never 


so  denying  it  all  Spirituality.  289 

reappear  till  the  coat  itself  disappears  or  falls  to 
pieces.  The  tailor  and  the  cloth  furnish  an  un- 
exceptionable material  parentage  to  the  coat ; 
they  combine  to  give  it  visible  existence  or  em- 
bodiment, so  that  no  coat  could  ever  appear 
without  the  sartorial  art  on  the  one  side  to  give 
it  soul  or  paternity,  and  a  tegumentary  tissue  on 
the  other  to  give  it  body  or  maternity.  But 
obviously  the  coat  is  not  merely  a  visible  exist- 
ence, it  possesses  also  an  invisible  or  spiritual 
BEING  in  that  distinctive  use  or  power  which  it 
exerts  over  other  existence,  and  which  accord- 
ingly constitutes  its  true  individuality,  its  dis- 
tinctive personality  or  discrimination  from  all 
other  things. 

Now  the  philosopher  I  repeat  is  concerned 
only  with  this  invisible  spiritual  substance  of  the 
coat,  this  absolute  individuality  of  it,  which 
alone  ordains  its  visible  constitution,  and  makes 
it  comprehend  within  itself  both  tailor  and 
clothier.  The  coat  itself  is  neither  the  tailor 
who  makes  it,  nor  the  cloth  out  of  which  it  is 
made;  though  both  of  these  things  are  prerequi- 
sites of  its  phenomenal  apparition :  neither  is  it 
any  conceivable  combination  of  the  two  which 
yet  leaves  them  reciprocally  discernible;  since 
every  coat  in  proportion  to  its  desert  of  its  name, 
makes  you  forget  both  tailor  and  cloth,  and 
never  recalls  them  to  mind  until  it  ceases  to  be 
itself,  /".  e.  until  its  merely  constitutional  side 
comes  uppermost  again  by  the  garment  itself 
falling  into  decrepitude  and  decay.  The  invisi- 
ble substance  of  the  coat  which  is  its  use,  is 
^9 


2c)0         Science  asks  what  constitutes  — 

what  alone  gives  It  unity  or  individuality  ;  is 
what  alone  creates  it,  /.  e.  gives  it  true  being,  or 
causes  it  to  exist  not  only  to  our  perception  or 
relatively,  but  also  in  itself  or  absolutely.  The 
constitutional  elements  of  the  coat,  which  are 
the  tailor  and  the  piece  of  cloth,  are  equally 
implicated  in  a  thousand  other  existences,  and 
do  not  therefore  contribute  to  the  coat  that  ele- 
ment of  individuality,  without  which  it  would 
not  be  a  coat,  but  might  be  a  pair  of  trousers 
or  anything  else  having  like  constitutional  iden- 
tity. This  element  is  purely  spiritual,  consist- 
ing in  the  distinctive  use  the  coat  fulfils,  the 
characteristic  service  it  renders  to  other  exist- 
ence, a  use  or  service  which  never  meets  the 
eye,  but  certainly  is  not  therefore  the  less  but  all 
the  more  spiritually  discernible.  It  is  thus  the 
use  of  the  coat  exclusively  which  gives  it  in- 
visible being,  or  spiritually  creates  it  ;  and 
hence  infallibly  prescribes  that  material  consti- 
tution by  which  it  exists  visibly  to  us. 

This  spiritual  side  of  existence  then,  this  ab- 
solute or  creative  aspect  of  it,  which  includes 
in  itself  and  accounts  for  the  entire  lower  world 
of  its  relative  or  phenomenal  existence,  is  what 
alone  interests  Philosophy :  and  this  unhappily 
is  what  Kant  and  especially  Sir  William  Ham- 
ilton are  treacherous  to.  Philosophy  is  not  a 
search  into  the  material  constitution  of  things, 
into  what  is  purely  phenomenal  and  relative 
in  existence.  This  is  the  exclusive  domain 
of  science.  Philosophy  seeks  to  know  only 
what  is  essential   to  things,   demands  to   know 


Philosophy,  what  creates  —  Existence?    291 

what  is  that  hving  or  substantial  reahty  which 
invariably  determines  their  material  constitution, 
and  forbids  it  to  be  different  from  what  it  actu- 
ally is.  It  takes  the  existing  constitution  of 
things  as  determined  by  science  for  granted ; 
and  then  demands  what  it  is  which  alone  con- 
fers this  fixed  constitution  upon  things,  which 
makes  them  precisely  what  they  are,  and  forbids 
them  ever  to  be  otherwise.  That  is  to  say,  it 
asks  what  is  the  creative  substance  under  all  this 
conflict  of  appearances,  what  its  most  intimate 
verity,  what  its  fundamental  raison  d'etre.  Kant 
on  the  contrary  degrades  Philosophy  to  the 
level  of  Science  by  identifying  the  spiritual 
essence  of  things  with  their  sensuous  constitu- 
tion, so  turning  Philosophy  from  an  inquiry 
into  the  absolute  being  of  things,  to  an  investi- 
gation of  their  phenomenal  existence.  He 
makes  it  an  analysis  primarily  of  the  constitu- 
tion of  existence  ;  and  as  he  finds  there  no  trace 
of  being,  no  evidence  of  creation,  no  sign  of 
life  or  infinitude,  he  at  once  declares  that  Phi- 
losophy is  an  incompetent  witness  to  these  truths, 
and  devolves  its  burden  upon  the  moral  instinct. 
Every  fact  of  life  or  consciousness  doubtless, 
like  every  fact  of  experience,  involves  a  consti- 
tutional side  which  gives  it  identity  with  all 
other  existence,  and  adapts  it  to  our  capacity  of 
sensuous  recognition.  But  you  give  a  mon- 
strously false  notion  of  the  living  fact,  if  you 
attempt  to  run  it  into  these  sensuous  condi- 
tions. Knowledge  does  indeed  always  pre-sup- 
pose  on  its  constitutional  side,  does  always  pred- 


21)2  Science  deals  with  the  Relative^ 

icate  in  other  words  to  the  understanding  of  a 
looker-on,  a  thing  knowing  and  a  thing  known. 
But  the  precise  miracle  of  the  living  fact  —  the 
very  lite  ot  the  conscious  experience  —  is,  that 
it  utterly  obliterates  the  discrimination  which 
sense  alleges  between  these  elements,  and  blends 
or  fuses  them  in  its  own  unitary  and  absolute 
individuality.  Lite  or  consciousness  always 
unites  what  mere  existence  or  sense  disunites; 
so  that  to  attempt  reproducing  the  living  expe- 
rience called  knowledge,  by  alleging  its  purely 
constitutional  elements  or  simples,  would  be  like 
attempting  to  convey  an  image  of  a  trunk  by 
enumerating  its  contents,  or  to  give  an  idea  of 
marriage  by  evoking  the  lineaments  of  a  mourn- 
ing bride  and  a  bereaved  husband.  As  marriage 
is  nothing  if  it  be  not  indissoluble,  as  it  confesses 
itself  instantly  falsified  by  whatsoever  impedes 
the  essential  unity  of  the  parties  to  it,  so  every 
fact  of  life  or  consciousness  supposes  a  complete 
fusion  of  man  and  nature,  supposes  a  marriage 
between  them  so  real  and  vital  as  to  make  any 
subsequent  divorce,  such  as  Kant  alleges  in  his 
discrimination  of  subject  and  object,  of  the  me 
and  the  not-me,  utterly  futile  and  impracticable. 
Yet  the  whole  current  Philosophy  of  Percep- 
tion is  built  upon  this  shallow  fallacy  of  obser- 
vation, upon  this  profoundly  vicious  and  incom- 
petent estimate  of  the  tact  in  hand  ;  and  no 
rectification  of  it  is  possible  therefore  unless  we 
clearly  understand  ourselves  here. 

What  we  have  already  seen  is,  that  science  is 
a  research  into  the  physical  constitution  of  things, 


Philosophy  with  the  Absolute.  293 

into  whatsoever  gives  them  visible  body  or  ex- 
istence, and  so  relates  them  to  our  intelligence  ; 
while  Philosophy  is  a  research  exclusively  into 
the  spiritual  essence  of  things,  into  whatsoever 
gives  them  invisible  being,  or  stamps  their  ex- 
istence absolute  and  independent  of  our  intelli- 
gence. Science  guards  the  natural  pedigree  of 
existence ;  Philosophy  takes  all  that  labor  for 
granted,  and  cares  only  to  assert  the  spiritual 
essence  of  the  existence  thus  generated.  Now 
what  we  are  about  to  scrutinize  is,  the  endless 
imbecility  which  Kant  has  fathered  upon  Philos- 
ophy by  confounding  these  utterly  distinct  fields 
of  research;  that  is  to  say,  by  sinking  the  Infi- 
nite in  the  finite,  dissolving  life  in  mere  exist- 
ence, and  running  the  philosopher  into  the 
logician.  The  whole  subsequent  evolution  of 
Philosophy  in  Germany,  starting  from  this  initial 
blunder,  has  tended  towards  such  a  deadly  objec- 
tifying of  the  me  to  its  own  consciousness,  that 
Hegel  or  somebody  else  in  his  place  was  bound 
to  put  a  climax  to  the  speculative  dotage  and 
delirium  of  his  race,  by  gravely  proclaiming  the 
identity  of  being  and  thought,  or  what  is  the 
same  thing,  making  God  to  be  vivified  by  us 
rather  than  us  by  Him.  But  let  us  begin  at  the 
beginning. 

Our  intelligence  is  conversant  with  two  orders 
of  facts  :  1.  facts  of  Life,  which  are  known  only 
from  within,  or  by  Consciousness  ;  2.  facts  of 
Existence,  which  are  known  only  from  without, 
or  by  Sense.  The  rose,  the  horse,  the  moun- 
tain, the  lake,  the  stars,  the  man,  are  facts  of 


2C)4       Fa^s  of  Life  Icnown  from  within^ 

existence  simply,  which  are  given  in  my  sensi- 
ble organization,  and  are  consequently  known 
only  ab  extra.  But  the  emotion  of  delight  I 
experience  when  I  view  the  lake  spreading  its 
smiling  bosom  before  my  window,  bounded  by 
the  verdurous  slopes  of  the  opposite  mountain, 
and  reflecting  now  the  busy  industry  of  man, 
now  the  repose  of  the  tranquil  heavens,  is  exclu- 
sively a  fact  of  life,  shut  up  to  my  proper  con- 
sciousness, or  known  only  from  within,  and  quite 
above  the  power  of  sense  to  produce  or  even 
adequately  to  report.  The  senses  involve  in 
their  varied  realm  all  the  scattered  particulars, 
or  merely  material  constituents,  of  the  land- 
scape ;  but  the  joy  I  experience  in  seeing  these 
disunited  details,  these  disje^a  ?ne?nhra,  melt  into 
living  unison,  is  a  purelv  spiritual  fact,  denoting 
a  sensibility  greatly  interior  and  superior  to  that 
of  my  body.  No  doubt  the  animal  sees  —  so 
far  as  the  mere  organic  fact  of  sight  is  con- 
cerned—  every  material  feature  of  the  landscape 
just  as  we  see  it,  perhaps  better.  But  that 
which  gives  these  things  all  their  charm  and 
meaning  to  us,  and  which  is  their  fitness  to  re- 
flect a  certain  interior  sentiment  we  profoundly 
feel  of  the  spiritual  unity  that  constitutes  Life, 
and  binds  all  existence  together,  this  is  entirely 
lacking  to  the  animal,  however  superior  he  may 
be  to  us  in  sensible  organization,  and  can  never 
by  any  possibility  be  communicated  to  him. 

Try  the  experiment.  Suppose  for  example 
that  you  lead  your  horse,  some  starry  night,  to 
an  eminence  whence  an  unobstructed  view  of 


Fa^s  of  Existence  from  without.         295" 

the  heavens  may  be  commanded.  He  will 
doubtless  see  the  stars,  see  those  which  fall 
under  the  horizon  of  his  vision,  quite  as  accu- 
rately as  you  see  them.  But  will  he  also  look 
at  them  ?  Will  his  gaze  be  attracted  and  riv- 
eted to  them  as  yours  is  ?  Will  he  feel  the 
emotions  of  grandeur  you  feel,  those  intimations 
of  a  life  higher  than  the  stars,  which  makes 
their  hoariest  orbs  seem  indeed  but  of  yesterday, 
and  turns  the  overpowering  galaxy  itself  into 
glittering  tinsel  '?  Assuredly  not.  He  will 
snuff  and  nibble  the  obscure  herbage  at  his  feet 
by  way  of  pastime,  and  will  remind  you  by  an 
expostulatory  snort,  that  good  straw  is  awaiting 
him  in  the  warm  stable  whence  you  have  so 
superfluously  dislodged  him.  But  as  for  any 
sympathy  with  you,  that  is  absurd.  The  horse 
sees  the  spectacle,  it  is  only  you  who  regard 
and  admire  it.  What  then  is  the  inference? 
It  is,  manifestly,  that  his  proper  life  is  all  con- 
tained and  exhausted  in  his  natural  organization, 
and  the  experience  which  that  enfolds  ;  while 
your  proper  life  on  the  other  hand,  the  distinc- 
tively human  life,  which  is  spiritual,  being  gar- 
nered away  in  the  Divine  depths  of  conscious- 
ness, only  ultimates  itself  in  Nature,  and  feels 
itself  at  best  but  dimly  imaged,  but  feebly  re- 
flected, in  her  most  vital  experiences.  It  is  in 
fact  always  and  only  the  infinite  and  ineffable 
Divine  beauty  which  struggles  to  make  itself 
known  in  these  emphatic  natural  experiences ; 
which  lets  itself  down  so  to  speak  in  these  tran- 
scendent moments  to  our  rapt  intelligence  :  and 


2()6  IVI:at  constitutes  a  thing 

in  the  surprise  of  the  rich  discovery,  in  the  be- 
wilderment of  such  unsuspected  wealth,  we 
often  very  generously  accredit  Nature  itself, 
which  is  but  the  stupendous  mirror  of  the  trans- 
action, with  a  glory  not  its  own. 

Thus  life  clearly  pre-supposes  existence,  or 
consciousness  presupposes  sense,  just  as  a  fin- 
ished house  presupposes  bricks  and  mortar :  but 
as  he  would  be  a  monstrous  dolt  who  should  be 
content  to  define  a  house  by  analyzing  it  into 
these  base  materials,  so  he  who  confounds  life 
with  existence,  consciousness  with  sense,  proves 
himself  incompetent  to  deal  with  questions  of 
this  magnitude.  As  in  resolving  a  house  into 
the  material  elements  involved  in  its  construc- 
tion, you  utterly  leave  out  its  characteristic  soul 
or  individuality  which  is  its  form,  and  which  is 
no  material  existence  whatever  but  a  wholly 
spiritual  one,  being  a  pure  derivation  of  the 
architectonic  art,  demanding  all  these  material 
conditions  for  its  own  manifestation  :  so  a  fortiori 
when  you  relegate  life  into  those  facts  ot  mere 
existence  which  relate  it  to  our  intelligence,  you 
utterly  evaporate  its  creative  spirit,  or  reduce  it 
to  instant  unconsciousness  by  destroying  its  indi- 
viduality. No  one  looking  at  a  house  and  esti- 
mating its  distinctive  character  or  individuality, 
regards  or  even  sees  the  bricks  and  mortar  im- 
plied in  its  structure.  These  things  unless  the 
architect  has  been  a  noodle,  are  forever  covered 
up  from  sight,  only  to  reveal  themselves  again 
when  the  edifice  shall  have  tumbled  into  dilapi- 
dation.    Every  house  accordingly  that  deserves 


is  never  what  Creates  it.  297 

the  name  stands  forth  to  the  beholder  a  pure 
form  of  heavenly  Art,  beckoning  onward  and 
upward  the  sou*. 

In  like  manner  precisely  in  estimating  a  dis- 
tinctive fact  of  life,  you  have  nothing  whatever 
to  do  with  those  purely  constitutional  conditions 
which  ally  it  with  all  other  facts ;  your  business 
lies  exclusively  with  that  thing  which  separates 
it  from  all  other  facts,  and  causes  it  to  be  itself, 
or  gives  it  absoluteness.  You  may  analyze  ex- 
istence to  its  last  gasp  and  you  will  never  lay 
your  hand  upon  a  fact  of  life  ;  simply  because 
life  is  in  all  cases  a  spiritual  fact,  being  known 
only  by  consciousness  or  from  within,  never  by 
sense  or  from  without.  It  is  true  that  before  the 
horse  can  realize  his  proper  life,  /.  e.  before  he 
can  consciously  enjoy  his  oats,  and  fling  up  his 
heels  in  the  abundance  of  his  pasturage,  he  must 
have  a  basis  for  it  in  an  organized  natural  ex- 
istence. But  you  may  ransack  this  organized 
natural  existence  to  its  primitive  germ,  without 
ever  catching  a  whisper  of  the  life  the  horse  en- 
joys, without  discerning  a  gleam  of  the  horse  him- 
self, in  other  words.  In  fact  the  deeper  your  analy- 
sis goes  the  further  you  get  away  from  the  living 
animal,  from  the  realm  of  life  or  consciousness : 
for  life  is  built  only  upon  the  intensest  synthesis 
or  unity  of  existence,  and  shrinks  aghast  therefore 
from  its  analysis  or  dissolution.  So  too  all  the 
facts  of  our  proper  life  or  consciousness  presup- 
pose our  physical  organization,  involving  as  its 
contents  the  universe  of  nature.  But  you  may 
traverse  this   organization    to  its   core,  without 


298       Life  implies  Existence:  Soul  Body. 

detecting  a  solitary  ray  of  Life.  Life  presup- 
poses organization,  that  is  to  say,  it  begins  only 
where  organization  ends  or  is  perfected  ;  and  to 
look  for  it  therefore  among  the  mere  contents  of 
organization,  or  in  any  analysis  however  subtle 
of  existence,  would  be  like  looking  into  the 
works  of  a  watch  to  ascertain  the  time  of  day. 
Undoubtedly  the  works  of  a  watch  are  all  pre- 
supposed in  the  creative  spirit  of  the  watch, 
which  is  its  distinctive  use;  just  as  our  physical 
organization  involving  in  itself  the  universe  of 
sense,  is  presupposed  in  our  conscious  life  or 
selfhood.  But  what  would  you  think  of  a 
droll,  who,  when  you  asked  him  the  time  of 
day,  should  insist  upon  consulting  the  bowels  of 
his  watch  rather  than  its  dial-plate  ? 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 

The  error  I  have  just  pointed  out  is  never- 
theless the  precise  infatuation  of  the  Kantian 
philosophy.  You  ask  Kant  a  question  of  cre- 
ative substance  or  spirit,  and  he  answers  you  by 
an  analysis  of  constitutive  surface  or  body.  You 
ask  him  what  creates  things,  or  gives  them  abso- 
lute being  irrespective  of  our  intelligence  :  he 
replies  by  telling  you  what  produces  them  to 
sense,  or  gives  them  phenomenal  existence.  You 
ask  him  to  explain  to  you  the  great  supernal 
mystery  of  selfhood  or  Life,  and  he  hastens  to 
plunge  his  foolish  head  in  the  purely  subterra- 
nean fact  of  existence.  In  short  you  expect 
him  to  marshal  you  into  the  drawing-room  of 
the  palace,  and  he  incontinently  locks  you  up  in 
the  kitchen.  We  know  well  enough  by  our 
unassisted  senses,  and  without  any  thanks  to 
Philosophy,  that  the  rose  is  one  form  of  exist- 
ence and  man  another;  that  the  lake  and  the 
mountain,  the  stars  and  the  earth,  however  much 
they  may  afford  materials  to  our  life  or  conscious- 
ness, are  yet  not  it;  are  sensibly  most  distinct  from 
us.  But  where  the  philosopher  might  help  us  if 
he  would  ;  /.  e.  if  he  himself  had  ever  previously 
been  a  learner;  is  just  here,  touching  this  majes- 
tic fact  of  life  or  consciousness,  which  thus  oblit- 


300  l-ife  or  Consciousness  unites 

crates  in  the  bosom  of  its  own  unity  all  these 
conflicting  facts  of  sense  or  existence.  When 
we  drink  in  the  fragance  of  the  rose,  or  the 
beauty  of  the  morning  and  evening  landscape, 
these  facts  of  a  divided  or  disunited  existence 
most  miraculously  melt  into  the  grander  fact  of 
a  unitary  life ;  so  that  it  becomes  impossible  for 
us  to  discriminate  where  in  the  new  experience 
the  rose  ends  and  we  begin,  or  to  say  how  much 
of  the  effect  is  contributed  by  the  landscape  and 
how  much  by  ourselves.  The  distinction  which 
sense  alleges  between  us  and  nature  becomes 
completely  wiped  out  in  the  higher  fusion  oper- 
ated by  consciousness  ;  so  that  we  feel  ourselves 
expand  as  it  were  for  the  moment  into  universal 
dimensions  and  lap  up  all  nature  in  the  bosom 
of  our  individuality. 

Every  fact  of  life  or  consciousness  proceeds 
in  other  words  upon  the  implication  of  a  strictly 
conjugal  tie  between  our  sensible  organization 
and  the  outlying  world.  It  implies  a  complete 
marriage  fusion  or  unity  of  these  sensibly  un- 
wedded  atoms,  man  and  rose,  man  and  water, 
man  and  sky,  man  and  universal  nature.  It  is 
this  standing  miracle,  accordingly,  which  you 
ask  Philosophy  to  account  for ;  this  superb  en- 
ergy of  life  which  compels  all  existence  into  its 
abject  yet  delighted  subserviency.  Every  field 
of  existence  quivers  with  the  acknowledgment 
of  it.  The  mineral  attests  it  in  the  phenomena 
of  crystallization,  the  vegetable  in  the  higher 
phenomena  of  sensation,  the  animal  in  the  still 
higher  ones  of  volition,  and  man  in  the  highest 


what  Sense  and  Reason  disunite.        301 

of  all,  those  of  taste  or  spontaneous  attraction. 
It  is  the  power  of  gravitation  in  the  mineral,  of 
growth  in  the  vegetable,  of  motion  in  the  ani- 
mal, and  of  action  in  man.  But  it  is  manifestly 
one  and  the  same  power  under  all  these  diversi- 
fied modes  of  exhibition,  since  it  shows  them  all 
concurring  to  one  and  the  same  end,  which  is 
the  highest  possible  potentialization  of  the  hu- 
man form,  in  the  promotion  of  its  endless  do- 
minion over  nature.  You  accordingly  ask  the 
philosopher  to  account  for  this  stupendous  mar- 
vel of  Life,  which  fuses  all  existence  in  the  unity 
of  a  beneficent  spiritual  end,  compelling  it  in 
fact  into  the  proportions  of  an  infinitely  various 
but  infinitely  harmonious  human  form.  What 
does  the  shameless  fellow  thereupon  do?  Does 
he  instantly  down  upon  his  knees  in  mute  be- 
cause ecstatic  acknowledgment  of  the  Highest? 
Not  a  bit  of  it.  He  incontinently  turns  his 
back  upon  the  overwhelming  spectacle,  and  com- 
mences grubbing  away  like  a  blear-eyed  mole  in 
the  mud  of  mere  existence,  to  prove  to  you  that 
he  there  finds  a  solution  of  the  great  mystery 
equally  disenchanting  to  one's  child-like  adora- 
tion, and  elevating  to  one's  manly  self-conceit. 
Life  forsooth,  or  consciousness,  is  merely  subject 
and  object,  the  me  and  the  not-me,  in  eternal 
correlation ! 

Sir  William  Hamilton  especially  revels  in 
this  shallow  identification  of  spiritual  cause  or 
substance  with  material  form  or  constitution. 
He  invariably  confounds  (in  practice)  the  cai/sa 
essendi  of  a  phenomenon   which   is   its  spiritual 


302  Sir  IV.  Hamilton's  curious 

individuality,  with  its  causa  cognoscendi  which  is 
its  material  identity ;  so  swamping  the  creative 
spirit  in  the  created  body.  In  fact  the  special 
addition  he  has  made  to  Philosophy  consists  of 
a  new  theory  of  the  causal  judgment  which  ut- 
terly empties  it  of  philosophic  import,  by  reduc- 
ing it  in  all  cases  to  an  expression  of  our  scien- 
tific incapacity  to  recognize  anything  beyond 
finite  existence.  Undoubtedly  we  do  not  sensi- 
bly discern  anything  but  finite  existence ;  but 
then  finite  existence  is  precisely  that  thing  which 
we  never  feel  any  need  to  account  for,  which,  in 
other  words,  never  suggests  the  idea  of  cause. 
Cause  is  invariably  suggested  by  the  perception 
of  a  change  which  has  come  over  the  face  of 
finite  existence,  of  an  interruption  to  its  conti- 
nuity ;  so  that  so  far  from  the  term  being  ever 
employed  to  indicate  as  Sir  William  Hamilton 
would  persuade  us,  anything  in  the  fixed  consti- 
tution of  existence,  it  is  never  so  employed,  be- 
ing always  in  use  to  express  some  new  phenome- 
non of  life  or  motion. 

For  example,  I  come  into  my  library  and  see 
my  papers  which  I  had  left  a  short  time  ago  in 
complete  order,  turned  topsy-turvy.  Nothing 
whatever  in  the  constitution  of  things  accounts 
for  this.  So  far  as  the  mere  existence  of  the 
papers  is  concerned  they  would  have  continued 
to  exist  forever  as  I  left  them,  until  they  were 
interfered  with  by  something  uncomprised  in 
that  existence.  I  am  compelled  accordingly  to 
demand  a  cause  for  the  phenomenon,  which  the 
phenomenon  itself  does  not  include  and  cannot 


Theory  of  the  Causal  Judgment.         303 

therefore  reveal.  This  is  the  universal  force  of 
the  causal  judgment,  to  separate  between  life  and 
mere  existence,  by  denying  spontaneity  to  things, 
or  proving  that  their  being  is  not  in  themselves 
but  in  something  greatly  superior  to  themselves. 
Never  accordingly  was  a  shabbier  dereliction  of 
Philosophy  practised  than  by  this  emeritus  pro- 
fessor, in  thus  violently  emasculating  the  idea  of 
cause.  He  has  not  the  slightest  misgiving  in 
robbing  the  judgment  of  its  immemorial  power 
spiritually  to  recreate  the  mind  by  lifting  it  out 
of  routine,  or  revealing  the  activity  of  something 
additional  to  mere  existence.  Comte  himself 
could  not  have  been  more  forward  to  claim  an 
exact  "  identity  of  existence "  between  cause 
and  effect,  between  the  causatum  and  the  causa} 
See  for  example  in  the  following  passage  where 
he  is  expressly  elucidating  the  idea  of  cause, 
with  what  a  remorseless  oblivion  of  every  obli- 
gation imposed  by  his  vocation  he  proceeds  to 
sink  the  philosopher  in  the  mere  chemist.  "  A 
neutral  salt  is  the  product,  the  combination,  of 
an  alkali  and  an  acid.  Now  considering  the 
salt  as  an  effect,  what  are  the  concurrent  causes 
—  the  co-efficients  —  which  constitute  it  what  it 
is :  "  (to  sight  of  course)  '•'  these  are,  first,  the 
acid,  with  its  affinity  for  the  alkali ;  secondly, 
the  alkali,  with  its  affinity  for  the  acid  ;  and 
thirdly,  the  translating  force  (perhaps  the  human 
hand)  which  made  these  affinities  available  by 

1  Discussions,  pp.  609-625.  place.  Consult  also  the  Z^c/wr^'j, 
The  exposition  there  given  is  Vol.  I.  p.  59,  and  Vol.  II.  pp. 
too    long    for   quotation    in   this     376-413. 


304  He  finds  the  cause  of  a  thing 

bringing  the  two  bodies  within  the  sphere  of 
mutual  attraction."^ 

This  is  doubtless  very  innocent  scientific  prat- 
tle, but  it  is  very  ludicrous  philosophy  ;  and  it 
will  be  a  lasting  discredit  to  Sir  William  Ham- 
ilton's critical  acumen  that  he  should  have  bog- 
gled at  so  egregious  a  discrimination.  In  the 
first  place  what  an  extraordinary  example  of 
causation  he  adduces  !  Who  but  a  philosopher 
beside-himself  would  ever  dream  of  asking  the 
cause  of  a  mere  fact  of  existence  ?  Suppose 
Sir  William  Hamilton  going  into  a  chemist's 
shop  in  Edinburgh,  and  demanding  with  a  grave 
face  "  the  cause  of  saltpetre."  Would  not  the 
chemist  reply  at  once,  with  a  smile  at  the  sim- 
plicity of  his  questioner,  "that  the  cause  of  salt- 
petre as  a  fact  of  existence  was  doubtless  one 
with  the  cause  of  all  other  facts  of  existence, 
and  that  he,  as  a  chemist,  would  be  sorry  to  ob- 
trude so  far  upon  the  domain  of  Philosophy  as 
to  attempt  teaching  the  philosopher  himself  how 
Divine  that  cause  was:  but  that  if  as  was  prob- 
able by  the  cause  of  saltpetre  he  meant  not  its 
cause  philosophically  speaking,  but  only  its  con- 
stitution chemically  speaking,  he  should  be 
happy  to  inform  him  that  it  was  nitric  acid  54 
and  potash  47.2." 

Philosophy  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
the  constitution  of  things  or  their  production  to 
sight,  that  is,  with  the  material  realm,  the  realm 
of  organization  or  body;  and  it  is  science  alone 
accordingly   which   teaches  the   chemist   that   a 

1  Lectures  on  Metaphysics,  WoX.  I.  pp.  59,  60. 


always  in  the  thhig's  own  Intestines.     305 

neutral  salt  is  the  product  of  an  acid  and  an 
alkali ;  for  the  chemist  is  expected  to  supply  the 
public  with  the  commodity  in  question,  and  he 
depends  upon  science  to  tell  him  under  what 
invariable  constitutional  conditions  it  will  be 
forthcoming.  Philosophy  deals  only  with  the 
essence  of  things,  that  is  with  the  spiritual  realm, 
the  realm  of  life  • —  of  consciousness  —  of  crea- 
tive substance  in  a  word  —  where  science  never 
penetrates,  to  which  indeed  she  is  incapable  of 
lifting  an  eye.  The  philosopher  has  no  com- 
mercial ends,  and  he  would  be  extremely  sorry 
to  consider  a  library  of  the  best  digested  scien- 
tific information  bearing  upon  such  ends,  equiv- 
alent to  the  feeblest  lispings  of  Divine  Philoso- 
phy. He  does  not  as  a  philosopher  care  to 
know  therefore  what  a  neutral  salt  is  on  its 
merely  generative  or  constitutional  side  ;  he 
does  not  ask  who  are  its  father  and  mother,  or 
what  materially  produces  it,  /.  e.  allies  it  with 
all  other  existence  by  giving  it  identity ;  but 
only  what  spiritually  creates  it,  /.  e.  separates  it 
from  all  other  existence  by  giving  it  individual- 
ity, or  endowing  it  with  this  splendid  power  of 
neutralizing  its  own  material  contents,  of  re- 
nouncing its  own  father  and  mother. 

Like  every  other  substance  in  nature,  this 
salt  reveals  a  power  above  nature  itself,  the 
power  of  pre-determining  its  own  natural  con- 
stitution, or  uniting  the  most  opposite  things 
at  the  sole  behest  of  its  sovereign  pleasure.  And 
the  true  philosopher  laughs  accordingly  at  his 
pseudo  brother,  or  at   the  chemist,  who  should 


306  He  thus  thinks  Saltpetre  both 

insist  upon  seeing  nothing  in  it,  but  a  product 
or  combination  of  natural  elements.  He  says 
to  the  man  of  science :  "  You  may  go  on  com- 
bining these  natural  elements  to  all  eternity,  but 
unless  the  salt  itself  first  prescribe  the  conditions 
of  its  manifestation,  first  dictate  the  invariable 
terms  of  its  spiritual  surrender,  you  will  get  no 
result.  Now  it  is  precisely  and  exclusively  this 
creative  or  dictatorial  power  of  the  salt  over  its 
own  constitution,  which  interests  me  as  a  phi- 
losopher :  this  spiritual  or  life-side  of  the  phe- 
nomenon which,  according  to  your  own  testi- 
mony, exhibits  it  prescribing  its  own  material 
contents,  not  one  atom  more,  not  one  atom  less; 
so  that  you,  when  you  would  artificially  evoke 
its  presence,  are  bound  to  use  that  magic  spell. 
Of  course  as  a  chemist  you  have  no  philosophic 
aim :  that  is  to  say,  chemistry  deals  only  with 
the  material  aspect  of  the  salt,  the  aspect  which 
it  presents  as  a  marketable  product,  and  which 
comes  to  light  only  when  its  philosophic  interest 
has  evaporated,  that  is,  when  the  living  salt  has 
died  out  under  the  fires  of  your  torturing  analy- 
sis. Your  analysis  destroys  exactly  what  the 
philosopher  values  in  the  phenomenon,  which  is 
its  spiritual  individuality  or  life.  It  sinks  the 
living  personality  of  the  salt  in  its  own  purely 
constitutional  or  corporeal  elements,  drowns  the 
vital  spirit  in  its  own  material  body,  leaving  it 
only  a  ghostly  and  ghastly  resuscitation  in  your 
formula  of  '  the  law  of  definite  proportions.' 
For  this  law  is  only  your  pedantic  scientific 
homage    to    the    great   creative  presence    itself. 


Constituted  and  created  by  KO  and  NOr,.  307 

When  for  example  you  announce  the  constitu- 
tional formula  of  saltpetre  as  nitric  acid  54  and 
potash  47.2,  you  simply  mean  to  say  that  if  you 
fulfil  this  prescribed  conjuration,  the  salt  itself 
will  appear:  /.  e.  these  servile  constitutional  ele- 
ments will  disappear  in  their  own  creative  sub- 
stance, will  become  glorified  into  a  higher  form 
of  life,  into  a  superior  personality,  than  they  them- 
selves have  any  intrinsic  title  to.  Plainly  then 
the  acid  and  the  alkali  do  not  create  the  salt :  at 
most  they  phenomenally  constitute  it,  i.e.  produce 
it  to  sight  in  a  given*time  and  place  ;  the  acid  giv- 
ing it  paternity  or  soul,  the  alkali  giving  it  ma- 
ternity or  body.  It  is  the  salt  on  the  contrary 
which  creates  them  by  exacting  them  as  the 
invariable  purchase  of  its  own  phenomenality. 
It  may  be  said  also,  and  to  the  extent  of  your 
interference  —  the  extent  of  what  Sir  William 
Hamilton  calls  your  translating  hand  —  to  cre- 
ate you  as  well,  the  humble  minister  of  science 
who  brings  the  elements  together ;  since  it  is 
the  very  salt  itself  which  furnishes  you  the  only 
ritual  capable  of  legitimating  the  nuptials." 

The  conception  of  cause  obviously  differs 
from  that  of  creation  in  this  respect,  that  the 
former  always  presupposes  existence,  while  the 
latter  is  always  presupposed  by  it.  Cause  is  a 
demand  which  is  made  by  my  intelligence  in 
order  to  explain  an  otherwise  inexplicable  change 
which  has  come  over  the  face  of  existence  :  thus 
it  presupposes  existence  and  an  intelligent  con- 
sciousness of  existence.  But  creation  is  de- 
manded by   existence   itself:    not  by   existence 


308  Cause  is  evoked  to  explain 

regarded  as  a  changeable  phenomenon,  but  as 
an  orderly  permanent  quantity. 

Cause  is  always  suggested  to  us  by  some 
breach  of  natural  order,  by  some  interruption  to 
the  observed  continuity  of  existence.  Experi- 
ence teaches  us  to  confide  in  the  uniformity  of 
nature,  in  her  inability  to  be  different  at  one 
time  from  what  she  is  at  another :  whenever 
therefore  we  see  this  uniformity  violated,  we  are 
instinctively  led  to  postulate  some  fact  above 
nature  itself,  some  fact  of  life  or  personality,  as 
necessary  to  account  for  it.  In  demanding  a 
cause  for  the  supposed  disorder  of  my  manu- 
scripts, it  is  obviously  not  a  fact  of  ordinary 
existence  which  prompts  the  demand,  but  ex- 
clusively a  fact  of  disturbance  to  such  existence. 
No  new  fact  of  existence  attracts  my  attention, 
but  only  some  change  which  has  come  over  the 
face  of  the  old  facts.  Experience  affirms  that 
the  old  facts  have  no  power  of  spontaneous 
change,  that  they  are  essentially  passive  or  de- 
void of  personality;  and  therefore  when  any 
change  ensues  we  instinctively  demand  a  cause 
outside  of  the  facts  themselves.  Causation  is 
thus  a  direct  confession  of  Nature's  insufficiency 
to  herself,  a  direct  disclaimer  of  her  power  to 
originate  any  of  her  own  phenomena  :  and 
hence  it  involves  an  indirect  attestation  to  the 
spiritual  substance  from  which  all  natural  exist- 
ence fiows. 

It  was  Sir  William  Hamilton's  failure  accu- 
rately to  observe  and  accurately  to  discriminate 
here,  which  led  him  to  his  extravagant  specu- 


some  breach  of  Natural  Order.  309 

lations  in  regard  to  the  nature  of  the  causal  judg- 
ment, upon  which  nevertheless  he  evidently  set 
a  very  high  value.  His  account  of  the  transac- 
tion is  briefly  this  :  "  When  aware  of  a  new  ap- 
pearance we  are  unable  to  conceive  that  therein 
has  originated  any  new  existence  ;  and  are  there- 
fore constrained  to  think  that  what  now  appears 
to  us  under  a  new  form  had  previously  an  exist- 
ence under  others.  —  We  are  utterly  unable  to 
construe  it  in  thought  as  possible  that  the  com- 
plement of  existence  has  been  either  increased 
or  diminished.  We  cannot  conceive  either  on 
the  one  hand  nothing  becoming  something,  or 
on  the  other  something  becoming  nothing."^ 

This  recondite  theory  of  causation  has  noth- 
ing to  justify  it  but  a  sheer  fallacy  of  observa- 
tion, of  which  any  man  of  plain  unlettered  com- 
mon sense  would  hardly  have  been  guilty.  Sir 
William  very  thoughtlessly  supposed  that  the 
realm  of  causal  investigation  was  the  finite 
realm,  the  realm  of  sense  ;  not  the  phenomenal 
realm,  the  realm  of  reason.  He  supposed  in 
other  words  that  men  were  in  the  habit  of  inves- 
tigating the  cause  of  things,  that  is  of  finite  ex- 
istence :  that  you  might  go  for  example  to  a 
chemist's  shop  and  demand  the  cause  of  saltpe- 
tre (meaning  thereby  its  chemical  constituents), 
without  in  the  least  disconcerting  the  chemist 
or  upsetting  the  gravity  of  his  apprentice.  The 
thing  is  absurd.  No  such  actual  event  could 
ever  occur.     No  one  practically  ever  confounds 

1  Discussions,  609,  610.     See     Lectures    39    and    40    through- 
also    Lectures    on     Metaphysics,     out. 


310      We  never  ask  the  Cause  of  Things^ 

cause  with  constitution.  It  is  only  the  philoso- 
pher who  is  speculatively  <2z/x  ^^^t^/i  that  ever  finds 
himself  drifting  at  this  helpless  and  melancholy 
rate.  In  practice  one  never  dreams  of  asking  a 
cause  for  things,  for  fixed  existence,  but  only 
for  the  observed  vicissitudes  to  which  they  are 
liable.  Things  we  suppose  to  be  created  not 
caused.  Phenomena,  that  is,  the  mutations  to 
which  things  are  subject  inwardly  and  out- 
wardly, we  claim  to  be  caused  not  created. 
Things  have  an  absolute  existence  to  sense,  and 
never  suggest  the  conception  which  is  implied 
in  all  causation,  that  they  exist  for  the  sake  of 
something  else  than  themselves.  The  origin  of 
things,  or  of  finite  existence,  is  a  question  of  pure 
Philosophy,  not  of  science,  all  whose  attention 
goes  to  ascertaining  the  purely  logical  relations 
of  unity  and  variety  which  characterize  finite 
existence  to  our  apprehension,  and  noting  the 
purely  phenomenal  modifications  to  which  its 
forms  are  incidentally  and  accidentally  exposed. 
The  vulgar  designation  of  the  creator  as  a 
cause  (the  First  cause)  is  owing  exclusively  to 
this  inveterate  habit  among  philosophers,  of 
reducing  questions  of  pure  Philosophy  (such 
for  example,  as  the  origin  of  existence)  to  ques- 
tions of  science,  to  the  extent  of  envisaging 
creation  itself  at  last  as  a  mere  event  in  space 
and  time.  The  question  of  creation  which  is  a 
question  not  about  any  event  in  space  and  time, 
but  about  the  origin  of  space  and  time  them- 
selves, is  a  purely  philosophic  question,  wholly 
insoluble  by  any  scientific  acumen,  and  disdain- 


hut  only  of  their  Mutations.  3 1 1 

ing  therefore  the  application  of  the  ordinary 
causal  induction. 

Apart  from  this  erroneous  application  of  it, 
the  word  cause  is  never  used  but  to  denote 
purely  phenomenal  or  insubstantial  existence, 
existence  which  is  not  self-pronounced  or  abso- 
lute ;  and  which  therefore  exacts  something  be- 
sides itself  to  account  for  it.  For  example; 
seeing  a  man  fall  down  in  the  street  I  ask  of  the 
bystanders  the  cause  of  the  event,  as  being  man- 
ifestly one  which  does  not  explain  itself,  and 
therefore  demands  some  controlling  external 
agency.  It  is  not  any  addition  to  existence 
which  arrests  my  attention;  it  is  not  any  sub- 
stantive thing  added  to  the  precedent  sum  of 
things  ;  but  merely  an  unlooked-for  affection  or 
change  of  some  thing  or  things  already  in  being. 
Such  is  the  universal  force  of  the  word,  to  char- 
acterize evanescent  or  insubstantial  existence, 
existence  which  has  no  substance  in  itself,  but 
depends  upon  other  existence.  Sir  William 
Hamilton's  fancy  accordingly  that  the  word  is 
used,  not  merely  to  account  for  the  changes 
which  finite  things  undergo,  but  also  to  account 
for  finite  things  themselves,  is  a  pure  fancy;  only 
to  be  legitimated  by  such  an  exaggeration  of  the 
realm  of  phenomena  as  blots  out  finite  existence 
altogether. 

This  in  fact  is  what  Sir  William  does  not 
hesitate  to  do.  He  maintains-'  that  everything 
embraced  in  the  realm  whether  of  sense  or  rea- 

1  See    his     writings   passim;     Metaphysics,  l^ecinresYlW.  anvd 
but    specifically   his  Lectures  on     IX. 


3 1  2  Hamilton  habitually  confounds 

son  is  purely  phenomenal  ;  thus  that  the  horse  1 
see  is  no  way  an  absolute  or  substantive  but  a 
strictly  relative  existence,  whose  cause  conse- 
quently I  am  bound  to  refer  to  something  else. 
The  absurdity  of  the  conception  becomes  suffi- 
ciently obvious  when  you  reflect,  that  probably 
since  the  world  has  stood  no  man  has  ever  yet 
actually  asked  of  his  neighbor  or  himself,  "the 
cause  of  a  horse."  But  the  fallacy  upon  which 
the  judgment  rests  is  equally  obvious.  It  con- 
sists in  confounding  the  data  of  reason  with 
those  of  sense,  and  inferring  that  what  is  relative 
or  phenomenal  existence  in  the  eyes  of  the  for- 
mer, cannot  be  absolute  existence  in  the  eyes  of 
the  latter. 

Yet  the  truth  is  exactly  and  demonstrably 
contrary.  To  my  senses  the  horse  is  and  always 
will  be  an  absolute  existence,  having  his  raison 
d'etre  in  himself  exclusively  and  out  of  all  relation 
to  other  existence.  You  may  indeed  convince 
me  by  the  allegation  of  certain  particulars  not 
included  in  sense,  that  absolute  as  the  animal 
seems  to  my  eyes  he  is  nevertheless  in  reality 
related  one  way  or  another  to  all  existence : 
what  then  ?  My  sensible  judgment  is  utterly 
unaffected  by  the  conviction,  and  the  horse 
seems  now  just  as  absolute  as  he  did  before. 
Why  ?  Evidently  because  your  proof  of  his 
relativity  addresses  my  reason  alone  or  the  re- 
flective understanding,  which  is  my  faculty  of 
perceiving  relations  ;  never  my  senses  or  the 
perceptive  understanding,  which  is  my  faculty 
of  perceiving    things.       And    consequently  the 


Finiteness  with  Phenomenality.  313 

horse  will  continue,  so  far  as  the  latter  are  con- 
cerned, to  exist  absolutely,  and  out  of  all  rela- 
tion to  other  things.  Reason  may  transcend 
sense,  no  doubt;  may  justly  refuse  to  be  bound 
by  her  utterances  ;  but  she  can  never  alter  them. 
Copernicus  himself,  though  the  geocentric  theory 
was  very  repugnant  to  his  reason,  nevertheless 
remained,  so  far  as  his  senses  were  concerned, 
an  unfaltering  adherent  of  it  to  the  end  of  his 
days. 

Had  reason  indeed  the  power  which  Sir  Wil- 
liam Hamilton  thus  implicitly  ascribes  to  it,  of 
imposing  its  own  oracles  upon  sense,  or  making 
sense  acknowledge  that  to  be  relative  or  phe- 
nomenal which  a  moment  before  it  felt  to  be 
fixed  and  absolute,  then  of  course  our  senses 
would  at  once  forfeit  their  own  distinctive  fac- 
ulty of  discernment.  That  is  to  say,  the  horse 
would  cease  even  to  seem  the  horse,  would  lose 
his  visible  identity  and  merge  in  other  exist- 
ence, if  indeed  formal  altereity  could  still  be 
affirmed  where  substantial  identity  was  denied. 
In  short  to  all  the  extent  of  our  sensible  exist- 
ence we  should  find  chaos  and  ancient  night  fully 
restored. 

But  the  pretension  is  even  ludicrously  unsup- 
ported. The  senses  by  an  instinct  of  their  proper 
conservation  deny  phenomenality  to  things,  to 
whatsoever  has  distinctive  form  or  body.  What- 
soever has  corporeal  fixity  or  finiteness,  whatso- 
ever appears  to  exist  in  independence  of  other 
things,  as  mineral  vegetable  or  animal,  and  does 
not  openly  confess  itself   a   mere  shadow  and 


314  They  are  as  distinB 

appanage  of  other  existence,  is  received  by  sense 
with  unquestioning  confidence  and  recognized 
as  absolute.  We  never  demand  a  cause  of  such 
things.  Cause  is  never  wanted  to  explain  sub- 
stantial but  superficial  existence.  It  is  suggested 
only  where  we  see  lack  of  substance,  i.  e.  where 
the  change  which  supervenes  upon  existing 
things  is  not  explained  by  the  things  themselves, 
and  consequently  suggests  something  additional 
to  them. 

Let  there  be  no  obscurity  on  my  meaning. 
Cause  I  say  is  never  employed  to  explain  new 
existence,  or  to  account  tor  the  origin  of  things 
properly  speaking;  but  solely  to  elucidate  a 
change  or  perturbation  which  has  come  over  the 
face  of  old  existence.  The  conception  of  a 
new  existence  in  nature,  either  positively  or 
negatively,  never  enters  into  our  experience  of 
the  causal  judgment.  In  plain  English  cause  is 
never  summoned  in  practical  life  to  account  for 
any  fact  of  orderly  constitutional  existence  at 
all;  but  exclusively  to  explicate  those  observed 
vicissitudes  and  interruptions  to  which  all  such 
facts  are  liable.  No  one  ever  asks  the  cause  of 
day  or  the  cause  of  night,  because  these  things 
belong  to  the  fixed  order  of  nature :  but  let  the 
light  of  day  become  suddenly  eclipsed,  or  the 
darkness  of  night  irradiated  by  what  is  called 
"  the  northern  lights,"  and  instantly  every  one  is 
alert  to  postulate  a  cause  of  the  phenomenon. 
It  is  never  any  universal  fact  of  order  which 
cause  is  challenged  to  explain,  but  always  some 
quite  specific   fact  of  disorder.      Even   in    the 


>,4S^^  -J 


as  Sense  and  Reason.  315 

way  of  negation  therefore  the  causal  judgment 
never  impHes  the  conception  of  new  existence, 
but  at  most  the  disintegration  of  old  existence. 
Its  evident  purpose  is  to  stamp  nature  with  im- 
becility to  our  apprehension,  by  proving  her 
most  fixed  order,  her  most  absolute  existences, 
subject  to  perturbations  and  mutations  which 
they  themselves  are  alike  unable  to  explain  or  to 
resist.  This  mysterious  play  of  life  which  every- 
where breaks  up  the  even  tenor  of  existence  and 
waylays  our  footsteps  with  endjess  surpriseSj  in-^ 
fallibly  disengages  the  mind  from  nature  and  ! 
educates  it  to  the  discernment  of  higher  things  :_J 
since  our  habitual  experience  of  nature's  stabil- 
ity forbids  us  to  attribute  it  to  her,  and  binds 
us  to  ascribe  it  to  some  superior  source. 

But  let  me  endeavor  to  make  all  I  have  said 
with  regard  to  the  causal  judgment  clear  by  a 
familiar  illustration. 

I  come  into  my  library  some  morning  and 
find  the  clock  which  I  had  left  upright  in  its 
place  on  the  mantel-piece,  lying  now  in  shattered 
fragments  on  the  floor :  and  I  of  course  set  my- 
self at  once  to  explore  the  cause  of  the  disaster: 
i.  e.  to  trace  out  the  living  nexus  which  binds  the 
precedent  fact  to  the  subsequent  one  ;  in  other 
words,  accounts  for  the  change  I  witness. 

Now  in  the  first  place  what  is  the  origin  of 
this  overpowering  intellectual  instinct  on  my 
part  ?  Why  am  I  irresistibly  impelled  to  trace 
back  the  change  I  witness  to  some  living  agency  ; 
/.  e.  to  something  not  given  in  the  actual  facts  ? 
Why  do  I   not   accept  disaster  as   the   animal 


y 


316       Cause  is  adduced  to  explain  Fa^s 

does,  that  is,  as  a  simple  fait  acco?npli  or  matter 
of  course,  demanding  no  rational  inquisition  into 
its  antecedents,  suggesting  no  rational  dread  ..oil_ 
^  its  consequents  !  Why  is  it  that  I  do  not  acqui- 
esce in  it  as  I  acquiesce  in  green  peas,  or  straw- 
berries, or  any  other  fact  of  nature,  and  without 
this  restless  curiosity  to  get  behind  the  event 
and  ascertain  what  I  call  its  cause  ? 

It  will  not  do  to  say  that  prudence,  or  the  de- 
sire to  shield  myself  as  far  as  possible  from  sim- 
ilar costly  contingencies  in  the  future,  forms  the 
chief  part  of  my  motive.  Prudence  no  doubt 
accounts  very  well  for  my  purely  personal  and 
adventitious  interest  in  the  inquiry ;  but  it  does 
not  explain  my  rational  or  scientific  curiosity  in  _ 
^he  premises.  My  rational  or  scientific  interest 
in  the  investigation  is  urged,  altogether,  by  the 
consideration  that  it  is  not  a  visible  fact  of  sense 
or  nature  which  arrests  my  attention,  but  a 
/  strictly  invisible  fact  of  relation,  which  therefore 
legitimately  piques  my  scientific  curiosity.  A 
certain  relation  unintelligible  to  sense  has  sud- 
denly declared  itself  between  two  facts  of  exist- 
ence or  nature  :  1.  the  clock  standing  upright  on 
the  mantel-piece  ;  2.  the  same  clock  lying  pros- 
trate on  the  floor  :  and  my  scientific  instinct,  or 
faculty  of  discerning  relations,  at  once  prompts 
me  to  trace  out  the  hidden  link  of  connection  _^ 
between  the  two  facts.  Thus  the  reader  per- 
ceives that  the  appeal  is  not  at  all  to  my  senses, 
or  the  faculty  whereby  I  apprehend  simple  ex- 
istence, but  exclusively  to  my  reason  which  is 
the    faculty    whereby    I    apprehend    organized 


:i>; 


not  of  Sensible  but  of  Rational  Order.    3117'^    L^^i 


^h"' 


_jcom£^site  or  relative  existence.  In  fact  the 
origin  of  the  causal  judgment  lies  altogether  in 
the  necessity  which  the  intellect  of  man  is  under, 
in  order  to  be  intellect,  oCiep.arating  itself  from 
^ensg,  or  renouncing  the  latter's  mastery.  I  feel, 
'as  man,  a  rational  instinct  of  revolt  against  the 
dogmatism  of  sense  which  teaches  me  that  every- 
thing substantially  is  what  it  formally  appears ; 
thus  that  nature  constitutes  her  own  substance :         / 

and  my^emand.  of  cause^is  the  invariable  signal / 

of  this  revolt.  My  intellect  becomes  built  up 
exactly  in  the  measure  of  my  yielding  to  it,  or 
following  it  out  to  its  last  and  most  negative 
results  ;  because  it  becomes  empowered  by  this 
preparatory  discipline  to  acknowledge  the  con- 
summate deliverance  of  Philosophy ;  which  is, 
that  as  all  the  shifting  events  or  phenomena  of 
nature  refer  themselves  finally  to  one  cause,  the 
finite  will,  so  all  her  most  fixed  and  absolute  or 
independent  existences  refer  themselves  to  one  y" 
cxeatof,  infinite  in  love  and  wisdoni^ 

To  apply  this  to  the  case  before  us :  all  my 
precedent  experience  of  nature,  all  my  observa- 
tion of  the  essential  passivity  of  existence,  for- 
bids me  to  suppose  that  the  disaster  before  me 
originated  spontaneously,  or  grew  as  we  say  out 
of  the  nature  of  things.  I  know  with  entire 
certainty  that  clocks  have  no  such  selfhood  or 
power  of  originating  their  own  activity,  as  would 
invest  the  one  in  question  with  the  responsibility 
of  what  has  befallen  it,  or  justify  me  consequently 
in  regarding  the  disaster  as  an  absolute  event, 
as  an  incident  involved  in  the  personality  of  the 


318       Causation  a  scientific  Rudiment  of 

clock.  My  intelligence  demands  a  cause  for  the 
disaster  therefore  not  in  things  intrinsic  and  inci- 
dental to  the  clock,  but  altogether  in  things  ex- 
trinsic and  accidental  :  thereby  explicitly  deny- 
ing that  the  life  or  power  manifested  belongs  to 
the  natural  objects  involved,  and  so  far  forth  of 
course  implicitly  affirming  that  it  acknowledges 
a  truly  supernatural  or  spiritual  derivation. 

But  now,  in  the  second  place,  suppose  the 
scientific  inquest  ended,  and  the  verdict  arrived 
at  that  the  disaster  proceeded  from  the  maladresse 
of  some  adventurous  child  or  awkward  servant. 
Is  the  mind  completely  tranquillized  by  that 
verdict  ?  That  is,  are  our  philosophic  instincts 
also  perfectly  appeased  *?  By  no  means.  Why 
not  *?  Because  Philosophy  is  never  content  like 
science  to  ascertain  the  relative  in  existence,  but 
goes  on  to  demand  its  absolute  ground^  Science 
has  found  in  the  child  or  the  housemaid  that  liv- 
ing link  of  connection  she  was  in  search  of  be- 
tween the  clock  on  the  shelf  at  one  moment, 
and  on  the  floor  the  next;  and  retires  from  the 
field  not  a  little  satisfied  with  her  own  prowess. 
But  Philosophy  demands  what  unitary  life  it  is_ 
jhat  thus, vivifies  the  varied  life  of  nature  :  who 
supremely  or  at  last  it  is  that  lives  in  this  child 
or  housemaid,  rendering  them  capable  of  dis- 
turbing our  repose,  and  damaging  our  property. 
Thus  Philosophy  does  not  begin  to  be  satisfied 
with  the  verdict  which  satisfies  science  ;  because 
no  such  connection  is  yet  avouched  between  the 
event  in  question  and  the  personality  of  the 
actor  in  it,  as  makes  the  event  necessary ;    or 


the  philosophic  idea  of  Creation.         319 

exhausts  the  fertility  of  cause,  in  suggesting  the 
presence  of  life  truly  spontaneous  or  creative. 
I  may  still  if  I  please  push  onward  the  scientific 
research  of  cause,  by  demanding  what  makes 
children  so  adventurous,  and  what  makes  house- 
maids so  unhandy.  It  is  only  when  all  this 
preliminary  rubbish  has  been  surmounted,  and 
science  brings  me  up  against  some  fact  of  will, 
some  evidence  of  moral  existence,  that  Philoso- 
phy becomes  entitled  to  take  matters  into  her 
own  accomplished  keeping. 

Philosophy  is  a  demonstration  of  the  Infinite 
in  the  finite,  of  the  Absolute  in  the  relative;  and 
so  long  therefore  as  science  has  not  carried  the 
finite  and  relative  up  to  their  highest  term  of 
evolution  in  moral  existence,  and  so  found  a 
decisive  limit  to  her  exploration  of  cause.  Phi- 
losophy is  necessarily  inoperative.  If  accord- 
ingly I  can  trace  a  moral  connection  between 
this  event  and  the  actor  in  it :  if  I  can  perceive 
that  either  the  child  or  the  servant  acted  with 
an  intelligent  foresight  of  the  mischief  to  ensue, 
and  what  is  more  with  a  deliberate  purpose 
to  produce  that  mischief:  then  at  last  I  shall 
have  reached  the  limit  of  scientific  inquiry,  or 
touched  upon  what  the  unaided  reason  of  man 
must  always  regard  as  absolute  existence.  I 
may  now  indeed  go  on  to  investigate  the  Ori- 
gin of  Evil  in  the  abstract  or  general :  but 
in  this  case  my  procedure  ceases  to  be  scien- 
tific and  becomes  properly  philosophic.  We 
Jknow  nothing  beyond  sensible  existence.  We 
,believe    only    in    moral    or   rational    existence. 


320       The  force  of  the  Causal  Judgment 

Neither  sense  nor  reason  gives  us  the  slightest 
intimation  of  spiritual  existence,  save  in  a  nega- 
tive superstitious  way;  and  consequently  they 
leave  the  field  free  henceforth  to  Philosophy. 
Unlike  science  Philosophy  does  not  regard 
moral  existence  as  final  or  absolute.  On  the 
contrary  she  sees  in  moral  existence  only  the 
very  dense  shadow  or  phenomenal  apparition.- 
jof.  spiritual  existence;  and  hence  begins  her 
inquiry  after  the  absolute  precisely  where  sci- 
ence leaves  off  inquiring.  She  builds  her  ob- 
servatory in  other  words  upon  the  very  tall- 
est star  revealed  in  the  heaven  of  science ; 
and  from  that  superlative  earth  alone  com- 
mences a  survey  of  the  marvels  of  her  own 
empyrean. 

We  may  say  then  that  the  total  positive 
force  of  the  causal  induction  is  mentally  edu- 
cative or  disciplinary  :  being  nothing  more  nor 
less  than  a  constant  denial  ,-of  the  autonomy 
of  nature,  a  constant  affirmation  of  her  essential  . 
subserviency  to  something  above  herself  It  is  ^ 
the  dawn  of  the  supernatural  to  our  perception:  / 
the  invincible  attestation  of  a  something  not 
included  in  mere  existence  but  on  the  contrary 
including  it,  namely,  life  or  personality.  We 
never  ask,  as  we  have  seen,  the  cause  of  any 
fact  of  natural  order ;  of  day  or  night,  of  seed 
time  or  harvest,  of  mineral  or  vegetable,  of  ani- 
mal or  man :  for  these  things  exist  absolutely 
to  our  senses,  being  in  fact  the  very  stuff  of 
which  our  sensuous  intelligence  is  constituted: 
but  only  of  some  perturbation  of  natural  order, 


is  mentally  Educative  or  Disciplinary.   321 

some  fact  of  life  or  motion  not  included  in  the 
uniform  tenor  of  existence,  and  therefore  addi- 
tional to  it.  The  causal  inference  is  thus  the 
very  citadel  of  the  supernatural  to  our  experience. 
It  binds  us  instinctively  _to_  deny  nature  as  a 
_finalj.ty»  and  to  regard  it  everywhere  and  always 
as  ministerial  to  something  beyond  itself.     ^  ^^  ^^ 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

Mr.  John  Stuart  Mill  is  a  man  in  my  judg- 
ment of  far  superior  intellectual  breadth  to  any 
of  the  persons  I  have  been  discussing.  His 
intellect  appears  to  me  thoroughly  penetrated 
and  vivified  by  his  heart;  and  though  his  opin- 
ions may  reflect  to  some  extent  the  defects  of  his 
early  doctrinal  training,  one  easily  feels  how 
small  a  matter  that  is  beside  the  profound  hu- 
manity which  underlies  all  his  judgments.  In 
all  Mr.  Mill's  books  one  feels  the  man  very 
much  more  than  the  author ;  feels  the  upright 
human  heart  throbbing  to  such  purpose,  that  he 
is  certain  the  somewhat  narrow  systematic  head 
will  one  day  or  other  encounter  the  necessary 
enlargement.  How  can  any  one  read  that  noble 
book  of  his  upon  Liberty  without  conceiving 
the  liveliest  respect  and  affection  for  the  writer: 
it  is  so  sincere,  generous,  and  full  of  manly  sym- 
pathy for  the  wants  of  the  time.  I  know  by 
the  way  nothing  more  touching  and  beautiful  in 
modern  literature  than  the  homage  of  heart 
and  understanding  he  there  pays  to  the  memory 
of  his  deceased  wife,  desolated  shrine  of  the 
Lord's  best  intercourse  with  his  soul.  It  is  as 
if  he  had  really  seen  while  she  lived  the  infinite 
substance  shadowed  in  her  tender  and  delicate 


John  Mill's  broad  Humanily.  323 

womanly  form  ;  and  one  yearns  afresh  in  read- 
ing it  for  the  time  when  —  humanity  being 
lifted  to  a  higher  level  of  life  by  the  prevalence 
of  superior  social  conditions  —  every  woman 
will  unaffectedly  recognize  herself  as  the  priest- 
ess of  a  truly  Divine  worship,  and  every  man 
shrink  aghast  consequently  from  offering  upon 
the  altar  of  her  person  the  incense,  now  so  com- 
mon, of  famished  appetite  and  mercenary  lust. 

Yet  even  Mr.  Mill  evinces  no  discernment  of 
the  philosophic  import  of  causation.  He  alto- 
gether omits  from  cause  its  philosophic  impli- 
cation, that  is,  the  negative  basis  it  affords  in 
our  minds  to  the  conception  of  creation,  and 
runs  it  instead  into  a  positive  scientific  function 
intended  at  most  to  induct  us  into  a  knowledge 
of  the  constitution  of  existence.  Undoubtedly 
the  research  of  cause  leads  us  incidentally  to  in- 
vestigate the  constitution  of  existence,  and  is 
thus  productive  of  the  best  scientific  results  to 
the  understanding;  amounting  in  fact  as  I  have 
already  said  to  the  complete  enfranchisement  of 
the  reason,  or  scientific  faculty,  from  the  bond- 
age of  sense.  But  then  these  scientific  results 
are  purely  incidental  to  the  research  in  question, 
and  by  no  means  avouch  its  true  philosophic 
scope  and  interest.  For  our  invariable  mental 
experience  is,  that  traverse  nature  as  we  may,  or 
sift  the  constitution  of  things  to  the  utmost,  we 
yet  never  come  upon  cause  as  a  literal  tangible 
entity,  but  are  alwa}s  forced  to  identify  the 
sphere  of  its  operation  with  the  sphere  of 
our    moral   activity.     We    only    find    in    other 


324  His  failure  to  explain 

words  that  the  sphere  of  cause  is  not  physical, 
but  purely  mental.  Philosophy  alone  is  com- 
petent to  say  where  and  what  cause  is  :  to  fill 
the  conception  out  with  its  eternal  substance,  or 
declare  what  the  positive  reality  is  of  which 
cause  as  scientifically  interpreted  has  always 
been  the  unflinching  but  negative  witness.  The 
scientific  recognition  of  cause  has  always  been 
of  this  purely  educative  efficacy,  as  gradually 
leading  the  mind  forth  from  the  thraldom  of  na- 
ture, from  the  iron  bondage  of  Fact,  into  the 
enlargement  and  freedom  which  flow  from  the 
presence  of  rational  supersensual  Truth.  It  has 
never  been  anything  but  the  fruitful  seminary 
or  matrix  of  a  superior  philosophic  idea,  which 
is  that  of  creation.  It  has  always  furnished  a 
salutary  half-way  house  to  the  intellect  wherein 
the  latter  might  find  refreshment  upon  its  toil- 
some pilgrimage  towards  absolute  knowledge  : 
it  never  pretended  to  provide  it  a  home  or  to 
constitute  the  goal  of  its  pilgrimage.  At  most 
it  claims  to  be  but  a  wayside  inn,  whence  the 
traveller,  recreated  by  a  night's  repose,  is  dis- 
lodged with  the  first  streak  of  dawn  to  resume 
his  staff  and  face  again  the  kindling  east. 

Up  to  this  negative  point  then  —  the  point 
of  telling  us  what  and  where  cause  is  not  — 
science  is  perfectly  competent.  If  she  go  be- 
yond it,  and  assume  with  Mr.  Mill  to  tell  us 
what  cause  positively  is,  and  to  indoctrinate  us 
in  its  substance,  she  impinges  on  the  office  of 
Philosophy,  and  turns  out  on  the  instant  a  vain 
babbler.     Why  ?     Because  the  contact  she  has 


The  InstinB  of  Cause.  325 

with  spiritual  substance  as  we  have  seen  is 
strictly  negative  or  indirect,  and  consequently 
confers  no  positive  qualification.  In  fact  just 
as  religion  stands  to  the  mind  of  the  race  in  a 
purely  generative  and  disciplinary  relation,  like 
that  of  the  father  to  the  child  :  so  science  bears 
a  purely  maternal  and  nutritive  relation  to  it; 
the  one  giving  it  soul,  the  other  body.  Religion 
gives  interior  quickening  or  soul  to  the  mind, 
just  as  the  father  gives  it  to  the  child  ;  and  sci- 
ence gives  it  outward  body,  as  the  mother  gives 
outward  body  to  the  soul  of  the  child,  by  build- 
ing it  up  of  her  own  substance,  and  nourish- 
ing it  with  the  living  tides  of  her  own  breasts. 
It  would  be  every  whit  as  unwarrantable  accord- 
ingly to  conceive  of  religion  and  science  creating 
the  mind  —  conferring  its  rational  unity  or  in- 
dividuality —  as  it  would  be  to  conceive  of  the 
father  and  mother  creating  the  child,  or  confer- 
ring upon  it  its  characteristic  spiritual  individ- 
uality. 

Thus  in  familiarizing  us  as  she  does  with  the 
conception  and  application  of  cause,  science  is  to 
be  viewed  only  as  enlarging  our  mental  horizon, 
as  developing  our  intellectual  fibre,  and  strength- 
ening its  muscle,  rather  than  as  imparting  to  us 
any  literal  information.  She  brings  us  up  to 
the  very  threshold  of  life,  but  she  gives  us  no 
glimpse  within  its  shining  portals.  When  she 
says  cause  she  does  not  pretend  to  acquaint  us 
with  any  positive  quantity  so  designated :  in 
other  words  she  does  not  tell  us  where  or 
what  cause  substantially  is,  but  only  what  and 


326  He  sinks  the  Philosopher 

where  it  Is  not.  She  says  :  "  the  substance  of 
that  Hfe  which  all  existence  reveals  is  not  in 
existence  itself,  is  not  in  nature ; "  and  hence 
by  implication  she  drives  us  out  of  nature  to 
discover  it :  but  only  by  implication.  Her 
exclusive  field  is  that  of  organization,  all  whose 
fleeting  phenomena  she  is  bound  to  coordinate 
and  harmonize  under  the  guiding  light  of  rea- 
son. She  has  no  single  authentic  syllable  to 
utter  about  spiritual  existence.  Her  sole  busi- 
ness in  life  is  to  assert  the  universal  relativity 
which  underlies  all  finite  existence,  thereby  no 
doubt  unconsciously  and  implicitly  avouching 
the  Absolute  and  Infinite.  But  if  she  attempt 
to  deal  explicitly  with  these  latter  quantities, 
she  betrays  her  instant  and  vulgar  incompetency, 
either:  1.  by  confounding  them  with  the  totality 
of  space  and  time,  which  is  the  greatest  possi- 
ble potentialization  of  the  finite  and  relative  ; 
or  else :  2.  by  converting  the  Absolute  and  In- 
finite, as  Sir  William  Hamilton  with  consum- 
mate assurance  has  attempted  to  do,  from  spir- 
itual substances  in  themselves  and  therefore  valid 
intellectual  cognitions  on  our  part,  into  mere 
shadows  of  our  irreversible  mental  imbecility. 
But  what  evidence  do  we  want  beyond  that 
of  Mr.  Mill  himself  in  order  to  prove  that  the 
scientific  use  of  the  word  cause  vacates  it  of 
philosophic  import,  empties  it  of  that  spiritual 
significance  which  it  has  to  the  common  mind 
of  the  race,  by  making  it  so  far  forth  as  it  is 
predicated  strictly  negatory  of  spiritual  creation, 
and  affirmative  of  mere  natural  constitution  in- 


in  the  Man  of  Science,  2p.j 

stead  ?  Had  the  fact  been  otherwise,  would 
Mr.  Mill  have  felt  himself  compelled  to  resort 
to  the  bewildered  jargon  of  bewildered  meta- 
physicians, in  order  to  justify  his  own  most  un- 
philosophic  procedure  in  the  premises'?  "When, 
in  this  inquiry,"  he  says,  "  I  speak  of  the  cause 
of  any  phenomenon,  I  do  not  mean  a  cause 
which  is  not  itself  a  phenomenon  ;  I  make  no 
research  into  the  ultimate  or  ontological  cause 
of  anything.  To  adopt  a  distinction  familiar  in 
the  writings  of  the  Scotch  metaphysicians,  es- 
pecially of  Reid,  the  causes  with  which  I  con- 
cern myself  are  not  efficient  but  physical  caus- 
es."^ 

What  does  the  mind  know  of  these  artificial- 
ities ?  What  does  the  mind  know  of  causes 
which  are  "  inefficient,"  or  do  nothing  ?  The 
mind  has  no  conception  of  cause  but  as  reveal- 
ing power,  and  personal  power  too  moreover. 
And  it  laughs  a  laugh  of  bitter  derision  over 
the  efforts  of  distressed  metaphysicians  to  put 
off  their  own  imbecility  upon  itself.  Granted 
that  you  cannot  find  cause  in  nature,  in  the  only 
sense  in  which  the  universal  mind  of  man  ap- 
prehends it,  why  not  manfully  acknowledge  the 
fact "?  For  this  is  precisely  what  the  mind  would 
have  you  to  do.  Why  go  about  to  split  cause 
up  into  a  heap  of  meanings,  which  the  unso- 
phisticated common  sense  of  mankind  utterly 
disavows  :  if  not  to  shield  your  own  incapacity 
to  discover  where  the  only  true  cause  of  things 
lies  ?     If  there  is  but  one  honest  Richmond  in 

1  System  of  Logic  (Harper's  reprint),  p.  196. 


328         He  makes  the  Cause  constitutive 

the  field,  why  conjure  up  this  host  of  spurious 
ones,  except  to  mislead  pursuit  and  so  secure  for 
yourself  a  temporary  reputation  of  success  ? 
"  The  cause  then,  philosophically  speaking," 
says  Mr.  Mill,  "  is  the  sum  total  of  the  condi- 
tions positive  and  negative  taken  together ;  the 
whole  of  the  contingencies  of  every  description 
which  being  realized,  the  consequent  invariably 
follows."^  But  what  a  caricature  of  our  con- 
ception of  cause  this  is  !  "  The  sum  total  of 
all  the  conditions  positive  and  negative  "  of  a 
natural  effect,  is  all  simply  the  universe  of  na- 
ture. Does  Mr.  Mill  really  believe  that  when 
''philosophically  speaking,"  as  he  says,  I  ask  the 
cause  of  any  specific  phenomenon,  I  should  not 
be  revolted  if  any  one  replied  "the  universe"*? 
How  is  it  then  that  he  allows  his  fine  sense  to 
be  so  trifled  with  '? 

The  cause  "philosophically  speaking"  of  no 
effect  in  nature  is  to  be  found  in  its  constitutional 
conditions.  Comte  is  perfectly  right  so  far  in 
relegating  cause  out  of  nature.  How  should 
the  research  of  cause  educate  my  intellect,  what 
intellectual  help  of  any  sort  would  it  bring  me, 
to  know  all  the  causes  of  all  the  effects  in  the 
universe,  if  cause  had  the  restricted  meaning 
which  Mr.  Mill  assigns  it  ?•  Such  knowledge 
might  furnish  my  memory,  and  be  of  use  to  me 
in  the  arts,  I  admit :  but  how  does  it  empower 
my  intellect  to  discern  the  absolute  being  of 
things,  which  alone  is  the  quest  of  Philosophy '? 
For  example,  a  man  falls,  as  Mr.  Mill  says,  from 

'  System  of  Logic,  p.  200. 


of  the  Effe^ ;  not  creative  of  it.         329 

a  ladder.  Here  is  a  natural  effect :  what  is  the 
cause  of  it  ?  Why,  replies  a  bystander,  the 
man's  foot  slipped,  and  down  he  came.  Aye, 
exclaims  another,  but  what  caused  his  foot  to 
slip?  Why,  replies  a  third  person,  the  ladder 
stood  uneven.  But  what,  demands  a  fourth, 
caused  the  ladder  to  be  put  up  in  that  insecure 
way  *?  You  see  each  of  these  alleged  causes 
declares  itself  no  cause,  in  appealing  to  some- 
thing higher  that  lies  behind  it.  Another  by- 
stander moreover  is  heard  to  say  that  the  main 
cause  of  the  calamity  was  doubtless  the  man's 
own  carelessness,  as  he  had  often  been  observed 
ascending  and  descending  the  ladder  in  the  most 
foolhardy  manner,  without  taking  hold  of  the 
sides.  Another  insists  that  in  addition  to  all 
these  reputed  causes,  a  sudden  flaw  of  wind 
lifted  the  poor  fellow's  hat,  and  by  thus  violently 
wrenching  his  attention  from  his  heels  to  his 
head,  contrived  to  precipitate  him  to  the  ground. 
And  so  on  and  so  on,  until  at  last  some  one 
arrives  greatly  more  pompous  but  not  a  whit 
more  philosophic  than  the  rest,  and  adjourns  the 
debate  by  declaring  that  the  man  fell  solely  in 
obedience  to  the  law  of  gravitation,  which  law 
accordingly  is  the  real  cause'  of  the  disaster. 

Now  all  these  alleged  causes  of  the  phenome- 
non in  question,  supposing  them  all  to  be  liter- 
ally exact,  obviously  add  nothing  to  our  intel- 
lectual resources,  or  fail  to  suggest  any  real  cause 
of  the  disaster,  inasmuch  as  they  are  all  alike 
included  in  it,  all  alike  given  in  the  problem  to 
be  solved.     They  are  all  of  them  only  so  many 


330       Philosophy  reverses  this  Judg?nent^ 

more  or  less  pronounced  features,  so  nnany  more 
or  less  remote  particulars  of  the  disaster,  so 
many  more  or  less  palpable  constituents  of  the 
man's  fall;  and  cannot  be  accepted  therefore  as 
a  philosophic  explanation  of  it.  You  take  for 
granted  whenever  a  man  falls  down,  that  he  is 
struck  with  apoplexy,  or  that  his  foot  tripped  or 
slipped  or  something  of  that  sort,  and  that  his 
body  meanwhile  was  amenable  to  the  law  of 
gravitation;  and  if  the  cause  of  the  man's  fall, 
philosophically  viewed,  consisted  in  such  idle 
particulars,  one  might  know  all  the  causes  of  all 
the  effects  in  nature,  and  be  none  the  wiser  for 
the  knowledge :  but  on  the  contrary  a  good 
deal  poorer,  inasmuch  as  pedantry,  which  is  use- 
less knowledge,  hinders  our  intellectual  develop- 
ment rather  than  helps  it.  If  the  question  of 
cause  were  to  be  exhausted  by  heaping  up  these 
trivial  and  insignificant  particulars ;  that  is,  by 
finding  out  this  that  and  every  other  natural 
antecedent  and  coefficient  of  a  natural  effect : 
who  would  care  to  pursue  it  ?  And  how  many 
myriads  of  years  would  it  take  to  nourish  the 
mind  up  to  its  proper  philosophic  stature,  if 
these  and  such  like  scientific  crumbs  furnished 
its  only  diet  ? 

Cause,  philosophically  viewed,  invariably  in- 
terprets itself  into  creation.  What  the  philoso- 
pher sees  in  our  demand  of  cause  is  merely  an 
intellectual  instinct  impelling  us  to  feel  after,  if 
haply  we  may  find,  the  true  source  of  our  being. 
The  instinct  may  be  duped  for  a  long  time;  it 
may   come    to    persuade   itself  at   length   as   in 


giving  Cause  a  creative  efficacy.         331 

Comte  Sir  William  Hamilton  John  Stuart  Mill 
and  other  of  our  philosophic  notabilities,  that  it 
is  after  all  only  seeking  to  know  not  what  cre- 
ates or  gives  absolute  being  to  things,  but  only 
what  constitutes  them  or  gives  them  phenome- 
nal body.  But  this  is  a  temporary  obscuration. 
Philosophy,  like  Him  to  whom  alone  it  points, 
has  no  respect  of  persons.  It  may  please  these 
gentlemen  to  stultify  themselves  and  their  fol- 
lowers ;  but  they  cannot  stultify  Philosophy. 
She  sees  that  nothing  can  be  more  childish  than 
to  seek  the  cause  (properly  so  called)  of  any 
effect  upon  the  same  level  with  the  effect  itself. 
Wisdom  is  never  going  to  be  wooed  in  that 
abject  way.  Nature  disowns  her  own  origi- 
nation ;  does  not  even  know  her  own  source. 
Nothing  in  nature  exists  from  itself,  but  every- 
thing from  something  higher  than  itself  No 
natural  effect  ever  owns  a  natural  cause.  No 
matter  how  trifling  and  inconsiderable  the  effect 
may  be,  it  invariably  demands  a  spiritual  cause, 
a  supernatural  origin,  and  refuses  to  be  dealt 
with  on  any  lower  terms. 

Thus  whenever  I  ask  as  a  philosopher  the 
cause  of  any  effect,  I  have  not  the  least  desire 
to  know  what  constitutes  it  or  gives  it  visible 
body  :  science  tells  me  all  about  that :  I  simply 
seek  to  know  what  creates  it  or  gives  it  invisi- 
ble spiritual  being.  If  with  Sir  William  Hamil- 
ton you  should  take  some  fact  of  existence,  say 
a  beaver  hat,  and  apply  the  causal  judgment  to 
it,  you  would  not  as  a  philosopher  seek  to  know 
what  gives  the  hat  mere   body  or  visible  exist- 


332  Cause  invariably  opens  up 

ence :  for  the  hatter  on  the  one  hand  and  the 
beaver  on  the  other  shed  all  the  light  you  re- 
quire on  that  topic  :  you  ask  exclusively  what 
gives  the  hat  being.  You  as  a  philosopher  are 
perfectly  indifferent  to  its  material  constitution 
or  visible  existence.  What  you  seek  to  dis- 
cover is  its  spiritual  being,  or  that  thing  which 
makes  its  material  constitution,  its  visible  exist- 
ence, necessary.  It  is  with  you  a  question  alto- 
gether about  that  invisible  soul  or  substance  of 
the  hat  which  makes  it  exist  in  the  nature  of 
things,  and  calls  for  the  existence  of  the  beaver 
and  the  skill  of  the  hatter  in  order  to  embody 
it.  The  question  of  cause  rightly  regarded 
opens  up  to  the  philosophic  mind  the  largest 
realm  of  knowledge,  the  spiritual  realm,  the 
realm  of  soul,  of  use,  of  power ;  and  utterly 
disdains  the  merely  material  realm,  the  realm 
of  body,  of  inertia,  of  death.  Thus  to  know 
philosophically  the  cause  of  the  man's  fall  from 
the  ladder,  you  must  look  entirely  away  from 
this  nether  realm  of  nature,  beyond  the  utter- 
most sweep  of  the  law  of  gravitation,  where 
no  wind  blows  rude  enough  to  jostle  the  jaun- 
tiest hat  that  ever  sat  upon  a  human  head, 
and  where  no  foot  of  any  frolicsome  Paddy 
ever  fails  upon  any  ladder  which  it  has  the  least 
business  to  mount  or  dismount.  In  short  you 
must  look  to  the  inner  or  spiritual  world,  the 
world  of  mind,  which  is  the  world  of  true 
cause,  because  it  is  the  world  of  true  life  or 
being,  where  every  man  dwells  positively  or 
negatively  in  intimate  and  indissoluble  spiritual 


the  Supernatural  Realm.  333 

unison  with  the  Divine  spirit,  which  is  cease- 
lessly shaping  him  to  the  image  of  its  own  per- 
fect power  and  bliss. 

Let  me  here  briefly  sum  up  all  I  have  discur- 
sively said  upon  the  subject  of  the  causal  judg- 
ment, and  so  have  done  with  it. 

The  conception  of  cause  is  strictly  ancillary 
to  that  of  creation  ;  just  as  religion  and  science 
which  familiarize  us  with  the  former  conception, 
are  themselves  strictly  ancillary  to  Philosophy 
which  deals  exclusively  with  the  latter  concep- 
tion. Religion  and  science  inaugurate  Philoso- 
phy :  the  one  by  affording  her  that  sensuous 
base,  the  other  that  rational  superstructure,  of 
intelligence,  which  she  herself  fuses  into  the 
unity  of  a  living  temple,  irradiated  by  infinite 
Goodness  and  Truth.  Religion  affirms  the 
finite  alone,  the  fixed,  the  unchangeable,  the 
dead,  as  given  in  sense  :  so  making  the  relation 
of  God  to  the  soul  altogether  outward  and 
physical,  and  investing  us  with  a  responsibility 
towards  Him  so  direct  and  literal  as  to  be  utterly 
crushing  and  death-dealing.  Science  affirms 
the  relative  alone,  the  unfixed  or  conditioned,  as 
given  in  reason :  so  making  God's  attitude  to 
the  soul  moral  or  contingent,  as  determined  by 
the  relations  we  individually  put  ourselves  under 
with  respect  to  other  men.  These  divided  as- 
pects of  one  and  the  same  verity  are  inflamed 
by  so  wholesome  a  reciprocal  animosity,  as  to 
force  the  mind  at  last  to  demand  their  pacifica- 
tion in  some  superior  third  form  of  Truth, 
which  shall  exhaust  them  both   by  more    than 


334        ^^  ^^  ^^  ^^^^  point  of  view  solely 

satisfying  them  both ;  that  is,  by  even  glorifying 
them. 

Philosophy  is  this  superior  and  reconciling 
form  of  Truth.  She  neither  inflames  finite 
against  relative,  nor  relative  against  finite;  she 
affirms  neither  religion  alone  nor  science  alone, 
neither  sense  alone  nor  reason  alone ;  but  sense 
and  reason,  finite  and  relative,  religion  and  sci- 
ence, both  together  one  and  indissoluble  in  the 
unity  of  a  new  or  regenerate  mind  of  the  race. 
Philosophy  dares  not  with  religion  affirm  God 
alone ;  nor  with  science  dares  she  affirm  man 
alone ;  she  says  neither  infinite  by  itself  nor 
finite  by  itself;  neither  absolute  by  itself  nor 
relative  by  itself;  but  both  alike  blent  in  living 
and  undistinguishable  unity :  so  practically  re- 
producing the  great  Christian  verity  of  the 
Lord  or  God-Man  who  alone  is,  and  alone  ex- 
plicates every  fact  of  existence  and  every  event 
of  history. 

Now  the  mental  judgment  which  we  desig- 
nate causation  bears  to  the  perfected  stature  of 
our  intelligence,  which  is  its  spiritual  acknowl- 
edgment of  God  in  human  nature,  a  precisely 
similar  relation  of  subserviency  to  that  I  have 
just  pictured.  The  judgment  in  question  in- 
volves two  elements,  one  fixed,  stationary,  iden- 
tical with  itself!,  namely.  Nature :  the  other  shift- 
ing, various,  progressive,  namely.  History.  Cause 
discriminates  between  these  antagonist  elements, 
between  the  fixed  dead  fact  of  things,  and  the 
unfixed  living  Truth :  but  it  affirms  neither 
against  the  other.     It  says  neither  finite  by  itself, 


that  Philosophy  envisages  it.  335" 

nor  phenomenal  by  itself;  neither  death  alone 
nor  life  alone  ;  but  both  together  one  and  indis- 
soluble in  some  third  term  which  shall  placate 
them  both  and  glorify  them  both  in  its  own 
commanding  universality.  By  this  discipline 
the  intellect  becomes  disengaged  from  sense, 
becomes  put  upon  its  proper  feet,  or  quickened 
to  discern  that  highest  or  universal  form  of  life 
to  which  all  nature  and  all  history,  or  all  that  is 
fixed  and  all  that  is  phenomenal  in  existence  — 
all  that  is  dead  and  all  that  is  living  —  is  alike 
ministerial  and  submissive.  The  intellect  easily 
perceives  this  universal  form  both  of  nature  and 
history  to  be  human ;  but  the  human  form, 
though  it  possess  in  its  morality  a  fixed  basis  of 
distinction  from  and  superiority  to  all  lower 
forms  of  life,  is  yet  within  that  basis  so  infinite- 
ly diversified  or  individualized,  as  obviously  to 
postulate  for  itself  a  still  superior  creative  unity, 
a  distinctively  Divine  substance  indeed,  which 
reason  is  all  too  gross  to  apprehend,  and  which 
Revelation  alone  consequently  is  competent  to 
avouch. 

Of  course  the  mere  devotee  of  science  labors 
assiduously  to  purge  cause  of  this  supernatural 
implication,  or  else  to  do  away  with  it  alto- 
gether. He  wants  nothing  so  much  as  to  be 
able  to  account  for  nature  on  her  own  princi- 
ples, on  grounds  level,  if  not  to  sense,  at  least  to 
reason ;  and  so  disabuse  the  mind  of  those  be- 
wildering suggestions  of  the  Infinite  and  Abso- 
lute which  are  the  stumbling  blocks  of  science, 
because  they  teach  it  humility.     And  the  way 


33^       ^^^  of  were  Science  like  Hamilton 

he  takes  to  do  this,  is  by  degrading  cause  from 
a  strictly  scientific  or  educative  function  into  a 
strictly  sensuous  or  demonstrative  one,  in  con- 
verting it  from  a  purely  intellectual  instinct  in 
us,  the  germ  of  all  our  subsequent  spiritual 
efflorescence,  into  a  pedantic  literal  indication 
of  the  constitutional  elements  which  enter  into 
any  specific  phenomenon.  But  all  this  labor  is 
very  puny :  for  though  it  may  gratify  an  irritable 
egotism  or  an  audacious  vanity,  here  and  there, 
to  confound  life  with  existence — or  to  sink 
spiritual  creation  into  mere  natural  constitution 
—  by  making  the  changes  which  occur  in  exist- 
ing things  strictly  incidental  to  the  things  them- 
selves rather  than  accidental :  yet  we  can  no 
more  expect  on  the  whole  to  perturb  the  deep 
serene  sources  of  human  belief,  by  thus  mud- 
dling our  own  little  derivative  streams,  than  we 
can  expect  to  exhaust  the  overhanging  atmos- 
phere of  its  oxygen  or  rob  the  untarnished  heav- 
ens of  their  blue,  merely  by  fouling  the  air  of 
our  private  dormitories. 

Let  us  now  return  to  Kant,  whose  preposter- 
ous discrimination  between  phenomenal  and 
noumenal  existence,  or  "things  as  they  appear" 
and  "as  they  are  in  themselves,"  led  us  to  this 
long  and  I  hope  not  unprofitable  discussion. 
The  creative  substance  of  things,  what  causes 
them  to  be  or  confers  their  noumenal  quality 
upon  them,  inhered,  Kant  thought,  in  the  things- 
themselves ;  just  as  Sir  William  Hamilton  con- 
ceives that  the  creative  substance  of  saltpetre,  or 
what  makes  saltpetre  be,  inheres  in  its  physical 


deny  Cause  a  Spiritual  Implication.       337 

constitution  :  but  as  Kant  saw  no  trace  of  crea- 
tion in  nature,  and  as  nothing  in  nature  was  willing 
to  confess  itself  self-made,  he  concluded  that  the 
natural  world  was  a  strictly  unreal  one,  and  re- 
ferred the  real  one,  if  any  such  there  were,  to 
the  untravelled  and  indeed  undiscovered  depths 
of  our  own  extraordinary  nous. 

Of  course  Kant  is  inhibited  by  the  nature  of 
the  case  from  dogmatizing  on  the  subject  of 
noumena.  He  does  not  pretend  to  affirm  that 
they  so  much  as  exist  even.  He  only  insists  that 
the  phenomenal  quality  of  existence  affords  no 
guarantee  of  its  essential  quality,  and  forbids 
you  to  infer  the  substance  of  things  from  their 
form :  but  as  to  whether  or  not  any  such  es- 
sence or  substance  of  things  anywhere  actually 
exists,  he  will  not  allow  himself  even  an  opinion. 
He  is  like  a  man  who  disputes  the  title-deeds  of 
an  estate  in  the  interest  not  only  of  an  unknown 
but  of  an  essentially  unknowable  and  possibly 
altogether  imaginary  tenant,  and  without  being 
too  sure  indeed  that  the  estate  itself  exists  in 
rerum  naturd:  all  he  is  sure  of  being,  that  if  the 
estate  itself  be  not  an  imaginary  quantity,  and 
if  there  be  any  legitimate  title  to  it,  such  title 
cannot  by  any  possibility  vest  in  the  apparent 
incumbent. 

Don  Quixote  was  but  the  faintest  type  of  this 
"  metaphysic  wit;"  for  the  Dulcinea  he  served, 
though  she  was  not  the  lofty  lady  his  chivalrous 
imagination  painted  her,  was  yet  a  veritable 
flesh  and  blood  damsel,  known  and  loved  of 
all  the  fragrant   kine  at   least  whose   distended 


338  Kant  resolves  Spiritual  Being 

udders  used  to  yield  up  their  grateful  morning 
and  evening  sacrifice  to  her  tender  priestly 
manipulation.  But  this  noumenal  divinity  for 
whom  Kant  pants,  and  in  whose  honor  he  lays 
his  logical  lance  in  rest,  is  destitute  of  any  sub- 
stance whatever,  even  a  lying  substance.  She 
is  not  only  not  a  decent  milkmaid,  she  is  the 
most  trumpery  verbal  abstraction  ever  palmed 
by  logical  impudence  upon  human  patience, 
representing  no  valid  existence  nor  yet  the  ghost 
of  such  an  existence,  her  gaunt  insensate  bow- 
els yearning  with  no  maternal  tenderness;  her 
fleshless  breasts  having  never  heaved  with  one 
throb  of  wifely  affection  or  maiden  modesty. 

What  we  have  already  clearly  seen  is,  the 
degradation  to  which  Kant  and  his  followers 
subject  our  knowledge  in  reducing  it  from  a 
spiritual  function  to  a  physical  one,  by  taking 
it  out  of  the  realm  of  consciousness  or  life,  and 
inserting  it  in  that  of  mere  sense  or  existence. 
For  example  :  I  see  a  rose.  Now,  says  Kant, 
given  your  organization  on  the  one  side,  and 
the  rose  on  the  other,  you  have  in  this  duality 
all  you  can  ever  know  of  the  experience  cited. 
Except  the  experience  itself:  I  reply.  We 
have  here  all  that  we  can  know  of  the  experi- 
ence by  sense  or  even  by  science,  but  absolutely 
nothing  of  what  is  known  of  it  by  conscious- 
ness or  life.  The  natural  parentage  of  the  ex- 
perience is  given  in  this  duality  no  doubt ;  but 
actually  nothing  whatever  of  the  living  experi- 
ence itself  The  whole  materiality  of  the  phe- 
nomenon, its  reality  to  sense,  is  here  exhibited, 


into  Physical  Existence.  339 

but  its  entire  spirituality,  which  is  its  reahty  to 
life  or  consciousness,  is  remorselessly  left  out. 
You  may  resolve  me  as  a  corporeal  or  even  as  a 
psychical  existence  back  into  the  loins  of  my 
father  and  mother ;  but  I  have  an  incorporeal 
or  spiritual  existence  as  well  which  baffles  chem- 
istry and  defies  all  rational  analysis :  an  exist- 
ence in  myself  or  to  consciousness  which  laughs 
to  scorn  the  attribution  of  any  finite  parentage. 
No  amount  of  exactest  pedantry  as  to  my  phys- 
ical beginnings  will  avail  to  introduce  you  to 
this  great  spiritual  fact  of  individuality,  of  char- 
acter, of  personality  in  me,  this  fact  of  life  or 
consciousness  exclusively,  which  demands  an 
infinite  paternity,  and  is  forever  shut  up  to  the 
unsunned  privacies  of  my  own  bosom.  It  is 
precisely  this  inmost  and  sacredest  life  of  knowl- 
edge, this  utter  spirituality  of  the  phenomenon 
as  avouched  by  consciousness,  which  Kant  over- 
lays in  giving  you  its  material  genesis,  or  stifles 
under  its  natural  pedigree  ;  and  its  unhappy 
ghost  ever  after  haunted  his  metaphysic  pillow 
till  he  contrived  to  drug  it  by  that  timorous  con- 
cession of  the  world  "  of  things-in-themselves." 
He  inventoried  all  the  materials  of  the  house, 
all  that  had  been  necessary  to  give  the  house 
visible  existence  to  outside  eyes  :  but  he  lisped 
no  word  of  its  living  personality,  /'.  e.  of  the 
myriad  uses  it  promotes  to  those  who  inhabit 
it.  In  short  he  analyzed  the  dead  body  of 
knowledge  after  its  living  spirit  had  forsaken  It; 
but  instead  of  modestly  calling  his  analysis  a 
post-mortem^  he  had  the  fatuity  unpardonable  in 


340  He  makes  the  Disse^ing-room 

a  philosopher  to  represent  it  as  a  portrait  from 
hfe.  It  was  as  if  a  man  in  giving  you  the  natu- 
ral pedigree  of  a  horse,  should  fancy  that  he  had 
given  you  the  living  animal  himself  No 
greater  infatuation  was  ever  exhibited,  and  noth- 
ing explains  it  but  the  puerile  blindness  which 
the  cleverest  men  habitually  betray  in  reference 
to  the  distinction  between  life  and  existence,  be- 
tween truth  and  fact.  No  incident  of  life  or 
consciousness  can  be  sensibly  discerned.  We 
may  so  discern  it  in  its  parentage,  but  never  in 
itself;  because  being  in  itself  spiritual  it  can 
only  be  spiritually  discerned,  that  is  livingly,  or 
ab  intra  not  ab  extra.  We  may  go  on  accord- 
ingly to  investigate  the  mere  physical  investiture 
or  material  husk  of  our  living  experiences  till 
doomsday :  we  shall  never  by  that  process  get 
any  nearer  to  the  spiritual  substance  itself,  but 
only  the  more  hopelessly  away  from  it. 

Let  us  now  draw  a  little  nearer  to  our  theme, 
and  to  this  end  let  us  complete  our  extract  from 
the  convenient  and  capable  Schwcgler.  We 
have  already  been  taught  by  Kant  the  parentage 
of  knowledge  :  we  have  seen  it  to  be  the  invari- 
able issue  of  a  congress  between  an  active  sub- 
ject and  a  passive  object,  between  a  living 
mother  and  a  dead  father.  Be  not  surprised  to 
learn  therefore,  as  you  now  are  about  to  do  on 
the  authority  of  the  distinguished  accoucheur 
himself,  that  the  progeny  of  this  most  ill-starred 
and  unequal  conjunction  is  in  no  case  trustwor- 
thy, being  sure  in  fact  to  turn  out  either  an  un- 
mitigated idiot  or  an  unmitigated  liar,  it  scarcely 


the  Seminary  of  Philosophy.  34.1 

matters  which,  whenever  you  dispose  yourself 
to  place  a  serious  dependence  upon  its  word. 

"  Nevertheless  we  do  not  know  things  as  they 
are  in  themselves.  First,  because  the  categories 
or  forms  of  our  understanding  prevent.  By 
bringing  that  which  is  given  as  the  material  of 
knowledge  into  our  conceptions  as  the  form, 
there  is  manifestly  a  change  in  respect  to  the 
objects,  which  become  thought  of  not  as  they 
are  but  only  as  we  apprehend  them  :  they  appear 
to  us  only  as  they  are  transmuted  into  categories. 
But  besides  this  subjective  addition,  there  is  yet 
another.  We  do  not  know  things  as  they  are 
in  themselves,  secondly,  because  even  the  intui- 
tions which  we  bring  within  the  understanding's 
conceptions  are  not  pure  and  uncolored,  but  are 
already  penetrated  by  a  subjective  medium,  /.  e. 
by  the  universal  form  of  all  objects  of  sense, 
namely,  space  and  time.  —  From  this  it  follows, 
that  it  is  only  phenomena  which  we  know  and 
not  things  in  themselves  separated  from  space 
and  time."^ 

Such,  succinctly  stated,  was  the  momentous 
discovery  on  which  Kant  based  his  claim  to  be 
considered  the  Copernicus  of  a  new  speculative 
era.  Preceding  philosophers  had  made  the 
knowing  subject  wear  the  color  of  the  known 
object:  "henceforth,"  said  Kant,  "let  the  object 
take  the  color  of  the  subject,  the  thing  that  is 
known  take  the  shape  of  that  which  knows." 
What  has  been  the  result  to  Philosophy  ?  She 
has  gone   stark   staring  mad   in  Germany,  and 

1  Schwegler,  ut  ante. 


342  His  pretenston  to  he 

avoids  that  catastrophe  in  Scotland  only  by  re- 
nouncing her  function.  That  is  to  say,  Kant's 
German  successors,  never  questioning  the  valid- 
ity of  his  premises,  undertook  a  quasi  resuscita- 
tion of  the  object  thus  contemptuously  swallowed 
up  in  the  subject,  by  making  the  subject  objec- 
tive to  itself;  /.  e.  they  undertook  to  save  the 
creator  thus  summarily  merged  in  the  creature, 
by  making  the  creature  himself  evolve  the  cre- 
ator. Sir  William  Hamilton  starting  from  the 
same  chimerical  station  failed  to  reach  the  same 
crazy  terminus,  only  by  wilfully  running  his 
locomotive  off  the  track ;  that  is,  by  postulating 
the  radical  incompetency  of  Philosophy  to  any 
doctrine  whether  of  the  subject  or  the  object, 
whether  of  finite  or  infinite,  whether  of  man  or 
God  :  thus  taking  not  merely  the  existence  of  the 
creator  but  that  also  of  the  philosophic  creature 
himself  off  the  terra  firma  of  assured  knowledge, 
and  turning  it  into  a  question  of  blind  faith  or 
probability,  a  thing  to  be  forever  reasoned  about, 
never  to  be  definitively  settled.  Surely  Coper- 
nicus would  have  had  small  reason  to  felicitate 
himself,  could  he  have  fancied  that  the  seeds  of 
truth  he  planted  were  going  to  produce  a  crop 
of  such  egregious  Newtons  as  these !  But  let 
us  make  all  this  plain  to  the  most  cursory  intel- 
ligence. 

It  is  evident  from  the  preceding  citation,  that 
the  rectification  which  Kant  brought  to  Philoso- 
phy consists  mainly  in  a  new  coordination  of 
the  constitutive  elements  of  knowledge.  The 
disease  of  Philosophy,   he  thought,  lay  in   the 


the  Copernicus  of  Philosophy.  34.3 

preponderance  it  had  hitherto  allowed  to  the 
matter  of  knowledge  over  its  form ;  and  he 
presumed  therefore  that  if  he  could  correct  this 
bad  habit,  and  teach  the  philosopher  to  regard 
the  matter  of  knowledge  as  rightfully  determined 
by  its  form,  the  disease  would  be  done  away, 
and  Philosophy  be  permanently  set  upon  its  legs. 
For  example  :  I  see  a  rose.  "  Now,"  says  Kant, 
"  there  are  two  generative  elements  in  this  per- 
ception :  1.  the  seer,  2.  the  seen;  or  you  the 
subject  of  the  perception,  and  the  rose  its  object: 
and  of  these  two  elements  the  latter  has  hitherto 
regulated  the  former,  so  that  men  have  come  to 
entertain  no  doubt  that  the  rose  is  an  absolute 
existence,  possessing  color  fragrance  dimension 
etc.  in  itself,  and  quite  independently  of  our 
perception.  Yet  the  truth  of  the  case  is  di- 
rectly the  reverse  of  this.  It  is  the  form  of  our 
knowledge  which  rightfully  regulates  its  matter, 
the  subjective  element  which  properly  determines 
the  objective  element ;  the  consequence  being 
that  the  rose  as  we  perceive  it  has  no  absolute 
but  only  a  phenomenal  or  relative  quality,  abso- 
lute existence  being  unknown  and  unknowable. 
And  so,  forth,  throughout  all  the  range  of  our 
faculties  sensitive  and  rational  :  we  know  only 
phenomena,  that  is  to  say,  things  colored  by  the 
forms  of  our  understanding  and  the  ideas  of  our 
reason  :  we  never  know  noumena,  that  is,  things 
themselves  as  they  are  in  themselves,  and  unaf- 
fected by  our  subjectivity.  Let  Philosophy 
then  concede  at  once  that  we  never  can  have  a 
sure    knowledge    of    any   existence    infinite    or 


344        ^^^  German  and  Scotch  disciples. 

finite  :  in  a  word,  the  search  after  absolute  cer- 
tainty in  any  sphere  physical  or  metaphysical,  in 
reference  either  to  God  or  man,  to  heaven  or 
earth,  is  in  the  very  nature  of  things  illusory, 
and  must  be  abandoned." 

The  reader  perceives  at  a  glance  that  this  was 
making  a  very  clean  thing  of  it,  so  far  as  the 
vocation  of  Philosophy  was  concerned.  For 
Philosophy  has  really  no  other  business  in  life 
than  to  point  out  the  Absolute  in  knowledge, 
/.  e.  to  possess  itself  of  the  realm  of  substance, 
of  that  which  spiritually  creates  or  gives  being 
to  all  these  fleeting  material  things :  and  if 
therefore  you  can  persuade  the  philosopher  that 
so  far  from  knowing  the  substance  of  things  he 
docs  not  even  know  things  themselves,  but  only 
some  fallacious  semblance  of  things,  you  of 
course  cover  his  pursuit  with  confusion,  and 
exalt  scepticism  to  the  crown  of  human  knowl- 
edge. Philosophy  is  nothing,  if  it  be  not  a  rec- 
ognition of  the  Infinite  in  the  finite,  of  the 
Absolute  in  the  relative;  and  if  therefore  you 
eliminate  the  finite  and  the  relative  from  knowl- 
edge, you  a  fortiori  vacate  the  infinite  antf  abso- 
lute, and  so  reduce  Philosophy,  with  Fichte, 
Schelling,  and  Hegel,  on  the  one  hand,  into 
a  rabid  glorification  of  our  natural  Egotism ; 
or  else,  with  Sir  William  Hamilton  on  the 
other,  into  the  protracted  howl  of  man's  in- 
veterate impotence  and  despair.  All  these 
men  alike  look  upon  Kant's  analysis  of  knowl- 
edge as  final,  apparently  without  giving  them- 
selves   the    trouble   to   scrutinize   it  :    only    the 


His  German  and  Scotch  disciples.        34.5" 

three  former,  with  that  everlasting  boyishness 
into  which  an  excess  of  imagination  betrays 
the  speculative  intellect  of  their  country,  un- 
happily saw  in  it  the  material  for  endless  oceans 
of  soap-suds,  and  began  at  once  to  amuse  the 
world,  in  the  intervals  of  smoking,  by  blowing 
out  of  their  long  tobacco-pipes  a  series  of  cap- 
tivating bubbles,  each  more  airy  and  evanescent, 
each  more  attenuate  and  fantastic,  than  its  glit- 
tering brother  :  while  the  latter  obeying  the 
bent  of  his  national  genius,  of  his  more  ortho- 
dox logical  culture,  regarded  it  as  an  unex- 
pected tribute  in  the  intellectual  sphere  to  the 
old  Calvinistic  tradition  of  Solifidianism,  and 
at  once  gave  himself  so  whining  an  utterance 
and  a  demeanor  so  demure  and  mortified,  as 
could  not  fail  to  be  very  edifying,  if  they  were 
not  in  the  eyes  of  Philosophy  exquisitely  mis- 
placed and  ridiculous. 

But  the  question  is  not  so  much  about  the 
consequences  of  Kant's  speculations,  as  about 
their  rectitude.  Was  he  right  or  was  he  wrong? 
This  is  the  only  question  we  are  called  to  dis- 
cuss ;  and  I  for  my  part  do  not  hesitate  to  pro- 
fess my  hearty  conviction  that  he  was  consum- 
mately wrong,  wrong  from  top  to  bottom, 
wrong  through  and  through,  in  short  all  wrong. 
If  now  I  can  only  succeed  in  imparting  the 
grounds  of  my  conviction  to  my  reader's  appre- 
hension, I  shall  then  not  only  have  vacated  the 
entire  base  of  that  delirious  Pantheistic  architec- 
ture which  since  Kant's  time  and  in  Biblical 
phrase    '■'•  has  stretched  out   the   line   of  confusion 


34^        H/s  German  and  Scotch  disciples. 

and  the  stones  of  emptiness  "  over  the  whole  of 
philosophic  Germany,  but  I  shall  also  have  done 
something  to  indicate  a  realm  of  certainty  in 
knowledge  which  shall  be  as  secure  to  the  high- 
est intellect  as  to  the  humblest,  since  it  is  com- 
pletely independent  both  of  our  wisdom  and  of 
our  will.^ 

1  See  Appendix, Note  G. 


CHAPTER   XX. 

I  HAVE  said  that  Philosophy  is  most  strictly  a 
research  of  the  Infinite  in  the  finite,  of  the  Abso- 
lute in  the  relative.  It  is  either  this,  or  it  is 
demonstrably  nothing  at  all ;  because  we  know 
only  the  finite  and  relative,  and  consequently 
(unless  we  make  knowledge  contradict  itself, 
which  is  absurdj  we  can  never  know  the  Infinite 
and  absolute  save  in  so  far  as  they  become  dis- 
closed or  revealed  in  the  finite  and  relative.  The 
Infinite  and  Absolute  are  what  we  are  naturally 
ignorant  of,  because,  being  by  nature  finite  or 
relative  existences,  our  knowledge  must  of 
course  reflect  that  imperfection,  and  confess 
itself  unable  to  ascend  to  the  Perfect.  Unless 
the  Perfect  therefore  condescend  to  our  disabil- 
ity by  revealing  Himself  in  what  we  already 
know,  /.  e.  in  the  imperfect,  we  must  remain 
forever  excluded  from  His  knowledge.  I  re- 
peat then  that  Philosophy  is  a  demonstration  of 
the  Infinite  and  Absolute,  not  apart  from  the 
finite  and  relative,  but  exclusively  by  means  of 
them.  She  rejects  every  other  definition  than 
this  as  manifestly  incommensurate  with  her  in- 
terests ;  whereas  this  position  being  once  made 
good  to  her  she  is  put  upon  an  inexpugnable 
basis   forever.     Her  sole   business  in  life  is   to 


348         The  fundamental  Misapprehension 

vindicate  the  eternal  mystery  of  godliness,  which 
is  God  manifest  in  the  flesh ;  or  what  is  the 
same  thing,  the  perfect  marriage-fusion  of  the 
Divine  and  human  natures  in  a  new  or  regener- 
ate manhood :  a  business  to  which  the  purely 
religious  and  the  purely  scientific  intellect  are 
both  alike  profoundly  incompetent ;  the  former 
from  its  inveterate  superstition,  the  latter  from 
its  equally  inveterate  scepticism  :  the  one  being 
sure  if  unimpeded  by  the  other  to  originate  an 
incessant  practical  Pantheism ;  the  other  an  in- 
cessant practical  Atheism. 

Now  the  fundamental  incompetency  of  the 
Critical  Philosophy  avouches  itself  just  here,  in 
that  it  totally  misapprehends  this  tie  of  recipro- 
cal amity  and  unity  between  God  and  Man, 
infinite  and  finite,  absolute  and  relative,  and 
converts  it  into  one  of  reciprocal  distrust  and 
aversion.  It  construes  the  infinite  not  as  the 
friend  but  as  the  impassioned  enemy  of  the 
finite  ;  and  postulates  not  merely  a  logical  but  an 
essential  contrariety  between  the  absolute  and 
the  relative  in  knowledge.  Kant  shows  cor- 
rectly enough  that  all  our  vital  experience  in- 
volves or  presupposes  a  close  relationship  be- 
tween our  organization  and  the  external  world ; 
but  he  instantly  forgets  that  this  is  a  fact  strictly 
of  involution,  and  not  of  evolution  —  of  pre- 
supposition and  no  longer  of  supposition  —  and 
proceeds  consequently  to  dogmatize  upon  the 
experience  as  if  it  were  exhausted  in  that  rela- 
tionship. 

The  idea  is  simply  absurd.     The  experience 


of  the  Critical  Philosophy.  349 

does  not  begin  until  the  relationship  in  question 
is  fully  consummated.  The  relationship  invari- 
ably precedes  the  experience,  is  rigidly  presup- 
posed by  it  in  every  case ;  and  hence  has  simply 
no  power  whatever  to  determine  the  experience, 
but  only  to  serve  or  promote  it :  no  power  ra- 
tionally to  explain  or  elucidate  it,  but  only  to 
afford  it  a  material  platform  of  evolution.  It 
was  a  dim  instinct  of  the  truth  here  which 
alarmed  Kant:  a  ghastly  dread  lest  —  if  the  living 
experience  itself  should  be  seen  in  every  case  to 
involve  an  absolute  quantity  —  Philosophy  might 
suddenly  and  superbly  authenticate  both  science 
and  religion:  that  made  him  hurry  the  experience 
itself  breathlessly  out  of  sight,  by  seeking  to 
dissolve  the  substantial  unity  it  implies  to  con- 
sciousness in  the  purely  superficial  and  structural 
diversity  it  yields  to  sense.  It  is  as  if  being 
asked  to  define  a  house  to  your  imagination,  he 
should  reply  :  so  much  bricks  and  mortar  on  the 
one  hand,  so  much  architect  on  the  other  :  or 
being  asked  to  describe  a  child  he  should  con- 
tent himself  with  introducing  you  to  its  father 
and  mother.  Surely,  you  say,  the  house  itself 
is  neither  the  materials  nor  the  scientific  skill 
which  were  necessary  to  generate  it,  being 
wholly  contained  in  the  active  use  it  promotes 
to  its  occupants ;  and  the  child  himself,  or  spir- 
itually, is  utterly  incapable  of  being  resolved 
into  the  loins  of  his  parents,  however  truly  he 
may  be  demonstrated  to  have  come  from  them 
in  all  corporeal  and  even  psychical  regards.  Spir- 
itually he  never  came  from  them,  but  claims  on 


35°  Kant's  dread  of  Philosophy 

the  contrary  an  instantly  Divine  origin,  Kant's 
replies  might  pass,  if  your  questions  had  turned 
upon  the  mere  material  genesis  of  either  prod- 
uct :  but  as  this  knowledge  was  rigidly  pre- 
supposed in  your  inquiry,  nothing  being  sup- 
posed unknown  but  the  quality  of  the  house 
itself  considered  as  a  finished  structure,  and  of 
the  child  himself  considered  as  a  living  person, 
they  are  simply  puerile  and  irrelevant. 

Let  me  be  perfectly  understood.  I  repeat 
that  the  reason  why  Kant  was  thus  persistently 
driven  to  blink  the  solar  splendor  of  Life,  and 
immerse  his  intelligence  in  the  comparative 
night  of  mere  Existence :  the  reason  why  it 
was  necessary  for  him  to  render  our  living  expe- 
rience thus  preposterously  exanimate  by  exor- 
cising from  it  its  total  individuality  as  ascertained 
by  consciousness,  before  he  would  consent  to 
account  for  it :  is  because  Philosophy  in  his  de- 
generate hands  had  renounced  all  memory  of 
her  true  mission.  A  true  Philosophy  whenever 
confronted  with  this  grand  fact  of  selfhood,  this 
supreme  fact  of  life  or  consciousness,  cannot 
help  feeling  herself  on  hallowed  ground ;  can- 
not help  feeling  herself  in  the  presence,  veiled 
it  is  true  but  still  most  vital,  of  the  Infinite  and 
Absolute  :  and  it  is  a  rare  philosopher  as  philoso- 
phers have  hitherto  been  estimated,  who  is  not  ut- 
terly disconcerted  by  the  apparition.  Kant  at  all 
events  was  not  that  philosopher.  He  was  in  fact 
less  a  philosopher  than  a  man  of  science,  his  intel- 
lect being  far  more  eminently  analytic  than  syn- 
thetic.  He  lent  himself  with  extreme  good  will  to 


as  a  Voucher  of  Creation.  3^*1 

the  scientific  demolition  of  religion  as  a  doctrine; 
but  he  had  no  foresight  whatever  of  its  philosophic 
reconstruction  as  a  life.  He  had  no  objection  to 
exalt  the  purely  negative  scientific  research  of 
cause  into  a  positive  utterance  of  Philosophy  ; 
but  when  as  here  he  found  it  bringing  him  face 
to  face  with  the  infinitely  more  august  because 
truly  philosophic  problem  of  creation,  he  felt  an 
instant  instinct  of  disaster  to  all  those  cherished 
interests  of  scepticism  by  which  his  intellectual 
vision  was  bounded,  and  without  more  ado  ac- 
cordingly he  gathered  up  his  coat-tails  and  fled 
ignominiously  to  the  uttermost  parts  of  the 
earth. 

I  am  persuaded  that  it  was  nothing  but  this 
mortal  dread  of  Philosophy  as  the  sole  authori- 
tative voucher  and  exponent  of  the  Divine  crea- 
tion, which,  unconsciously  to  Kant  himself, 
aroused  his  scientific  scepticism  and  drove  him 
to  interpret  all  our  experience  as  a  compromise 
between  our  subjectivity  on  the  one  hand  and  the 
truth  of  things  on  the  other.  Surely  if  I  am  will- 
ing to  look  upon  phenomenal  existence  as  creat- 
ed :  if  I  am  willing  to  perceive  in  it  the  evidence 
of  a  power  superior  to  itself  as  alone  account- 
ing for  it :  I  shall  never  feel  tempted  to  postu- 
late for  it  an  existence  more  real  than  appears. 
If  the  phenomenon  be  a  created  existence,  its 
phenomenal  selfhood  is  plainly  its  only  real 
selfhood,  the  only  one  which  does  not  mani- 
festly belie  the  truth  of  the  case.  Accordingly 
it  is  only  when  I  put  the  truth  of  its  creation 
in  doubt,  or  claim  for  it  an  underived  existence, 


352  Common  Sense  affirms  Creation. 

that  I  feel  myself  tempted  to  separate  between 
its  apparent  and  its  real  selfhood,  or  posit  for  it  a 
mode  of  existence  which  is  as  truly  repudiated 
by  its  own  consciousness  as  by  my  intelligence. 
Thus  had  Kant  been  willing  to  accept  the  vul- 
gar hypothesis  of  a  supernatural  creation,  he 
would  have  seen  with  half  a  glance  that  of  no 
created  thing  could  it  be  asserted  with  truth  that 
it  was  its  own  substance  as  well  as  its  own  form; 
and  hence  he  would  never  have  organized  that 
monstrous  basis  of  disagreement  between  Philos- 
ophy and  the  common  sense  of  mankind,  which 
was  afterwards  in  the  writings  of  his  German 
and  Scotch  disciples  to  avouch  their  recipro- 
cal deadly  hostility,  by  turning  Philosophy, 
whether  it  be  regarded  with  the  former  as  a 
positive  doctrine,  or  with  the  latter  as  a  purely 
negative  one,  into  the  most  flagrant  outrage 
upon  common  sense  ever  planned,  at  all  events 
ever  practised,  by  human  wit  and  human  learn- 
ing. 

The  common  sense  of  mankind  affirms  with 
no  misgiving  that  every  thing  we  see  is  created 
by  God,  that  absolutely  everything  which  exists 
does  in  some  infallible  way  confess  His  exclu- 
sive power.  No  doubt  the  common  sense  of 
the  race  begets  very  crude  very  superstitious 
very  unworthy  conceptions  of  this  great  theme, 
and  as  a  general  thing  degrades  the  creative 
process  from  a  purely  spiritual  to  a  purely  phys- 
ical and  even  mechanical  one.  For  this  reason 
the  philosopher  has  been  from  time  immemorial 
very  shy   of   the   vulgar  conclusions   upon   the 


Pseudo  Philosophy  denies  it.  353 

subject :  but  Philosophy  herself  has  never  de- 
manded that  these  conclusions  should  be  ig- 
nored, but  only  that  the  popular  conceptions 
should  be  chastened  and  elevated.  Least  of 
all  has  she  ever  been  willing  to  sink  the  idea 
of  spiritual  creation  in  the  purely  scientific  and 
preparatory  notion  of  material  constitution. 
She  equally  disavows  the  ancient  philosopher 
who  sought  to  run  creation  into  a  scheme  of 
physical  order;  and  the  modern  philosopher 
who  seeks  to  run  it  into  one  of  logical  order : 
because  they  both  alike  deny  creation  in  any 
intelligible  sense  of  the  word,  and  so  vacate 
Philosophy  as  a  substantive  vocation  by  at- 
tempting both  alike  to  account  for  existing 
things  on  scientific  principles,  or  without  the 
allegation  of  spiritual  substance.  The  mod- 
ern philosopher  especially  has  drunk  of  the 
new  wine  of  science  till  he  has  become  fool- 
ishly inebriated  and  lost  the  remembrance  of 
higher  worlds ;  till  he  is  no  longer  ashamed  in 
fact  to  maintain  that  what  we  popularly  term 
creation  and  conceive  of  as  the  exhibition  of 
strictly  supernatural  power,  is  in  truth  but  the 
carnal  interpretation  of  a  profound  logical  ver- 
ity, which  is  eventually  sure  to  come  into  gen- 
eral recognition  by  the  normal  progress  of 
science,  and  without  the  misleading  light  of 
Revelation.  It  is  this  contented  and  inveterate 
myopy  of  Philosophy  which  turns  her  into  the 
toothless  ineffectual  crone  she  confesses  herself  to 
be  in  the  pages  of  Kant  and  Sir  William  Ham- 
ilton ;  fit  only  to  sit  in  the  chimney-corner  and 
23 


354  Kant  utterly  mistook  the  Truth 

doze  over  the  golden  memories  of  her  prime, 
while  the  great  problems  of  Creation  Redemp- 
tion and  Providence  are  not  only  left  unsolved 
but  are  authoritatively  pronounced  insoluble. 
Kant  indeed  allows  these  questions  a  quasi  phil- 
osophic interest  in  reducing  them  to  so  many 
unrecognized  anticipations  of  natural  order. 
But  Sir  William  Hamilton  frankly  disowns 
them  altogether  as  being  completely  foreign  to 
the  jurisdiction  of  Philosophy,  so  consigning 
us  to  the  tender  mercies  of  an  irresponsible 
priesthood  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  an  unlim- 
ited scepticism  on  the  other. 

But  let  us  endeavor  to  be  more  precise. 
Kant's  philosophic  delinquency  grew  as  I  have 
already  shown  out  of  a  defective  scientific  ob- 
servation, which  led  him  to  exteriorate  the  ob- 
jective to  the  subjective  element  in  experience, 
or  give  the  latter  systematic  priority  and  con- 
trol of  the  former.  The  fundamental  antithesis 
which  all  thought  and  all  action  exhibit,  of 
subject  and  object,  of  me  and  not-me,  properly 
falls,  not  between  man  and  nature,  /,  e.  finite 
and  finite,  but  between  man  and  God,  /.  e. 
finite  and  infinite.  The  senses  do  indeed  au- 
thorize and  validly  assert  this  discrimination 
between  man  and  nature :  but  then  we  must 
remember  that  sense  regards  man  as  a  natural 
phenomenon  or  product  exclusively,  having  no 
capacity  to  discern  him  in  his  spiritual  nature 
and  attributes.  So  far  the  testimony  of  sense 
is  irrefutable.  To  all  the  extent  of  my  phys- 
ical manhood  I  am  properly  subject  to  nature. 


in  exteriorating  Obje^  to  Subje^.        35 j; 

I  breathe  her  atmospheres,  I  eat  of  her  corn  and 
her  oil,  I  drink  of  her  wine  and  her  milk  ;  her 
hght  organizes  my  eye,  her  sounds  animate  my 
ear,  her  odors  quicken  my  smell,  her  savors 
vivify  my  palate,  her  forms  enliven  my  touch : 
in  a  word  her  various  forces  constitute  the  sole 
and  total  field  of  my  bodily  sensibility  and  in- 
telligence, so  that  to  all  the  extent  of  my  finite 
organization  I  am  literally  built  up  of  her  sub- 
stance, and  propose  to  myself  no  higher  end  or 
object  of  action  because  I  recognize  no  surer 
spring  nor  ampler  provision  ot  life.  But  Phi- 
losophy rejects  these  natural  data  as  furnishing 
an  every  way  base  and  meagre  estimate  of  true 
manhood,  and  proceeds  at  once  to  assign  it 
worthier  dimensions.  Philosophy  makes  the 
characteristic  sphere  of  human  life  to  be  spirit- 
ual, and  is  manifestly  therefore  in  no  danger  of 
yielding  to  sense  in  regarding  man  as  primarily 
a  subject  of  nature.  But  science  also  ought  to 
be  above  any  such  temptation,  inasmuch  as  she 
herself  makes  morality  the  true  characteristic  of 
human  nature,  so  endowing  man  with  an  indi- 
viduality unknown  to  all  earth's  tribes,  and  in- 
suring him  the  unlimited  dominion  of  nature. 
She  thus  most  distinctly  reverses  the  order  which 
sense  establishes  between  man  and  nature.  For 
man  as  a  moral  force  renounces  his  obligation 
to  nature,  compelling  her  fiercest  appetites  and 
passions  into  his  individual  subserviency :  so 
that  throughout  the  moral  realm  nature  invari- 
ably posits  herself  as  properly  subject  to  man, 
or  defers  to  him  as  her  own  legitimate  and  ade- 


35^        'The  stupendous  Antics  of  Fickte 

quate  sovereign.  What  else  explains  our  ra- 
tional growth  *?  How  else  is  it  that  we  alone 
reject  the  light  of  sense  as  competent  for  our 
guidance,  and  substitute  for  it  the  more  subtle 
and  penetrating  flame  of  reason  in  all  our  con- 
clusions ? 

Clearly  then  Kant  was  as  treacherous  to  sci- 
ence as  he  was  to  Philosophy,  as  disloyal  to 
reason  as  he  was  to  Revelation,  in  making  the 
objective  sphere  of  human  life  fall  outside  of 
man's  subjectivity  or  below  it,  rather  than  with- 
in or  above  it.  He  systematically  identified  the 
realm  of  the  not-me  with  nature  instead  of  God: 
or  if  he  allowed  it  any  pertinency  to  the  latter 
designation,  it  could  only  be  by  divesting  God 
meanwhile  of  every  spiritual  attribute,  and  pos- 
tulating Him  as  a  purely  natural  existence  sep- 
arated from  man  by  the  totality  of  space  and 
time,  or  the  integrality  of  nature.  It  is  as  in- 
structive as  it  is  melancholy  to  observe  how 
the  whole  current  of  subsequent  philosophic,  or 
rather  logical,  speculation  in  Germany  reflected 
the  unhappy  scientific  bias  Kant  had  thus  im- 
pressed upon  it,  by  hastening  to  precipitate 
itself  into  the  fatal  embraces  of  Pantheism.  For 
of  course  if,  not  negligently  but  on  principle, 
you  exteriorate  object  to  subject,  being  to  seem- 
ing, substance  to  form,  you  necessarily  exalt  the 
minor  element  of  thought  to  the  unchallenged 
primacy  of  its  major  element,  and  consequently 
end  by  identifying  man  with  Deity.  Fichte 
accordingly  in  accepting  without  examination 
the  Kantian  analysis  of  knowledge,  found  him- 


Schelling  and  Hegel  thereupon.  2tS7 

self  logically  driven  to  interpret  Philosophy  as 
a  scheme  of  absolute  subjective  Idealism,  in  de- 
claring the  me  the  sole  and  universal  reality. 
Pantheism  was  only  impossible  on  this  meagre 
stoical  basis,  because  God  himself  according  to 
Fichte  is  but  a  creature  of  the  me.  It  was  not 
that  the  system  fell  short  of  God,  but  exceeded 
Him,  or  absorbed  Him  in  its  own  ampler  con- 
tents. Pantheism,  according  to  this  stupendous 
tom-foolery,  supplies  an  imperfect  theory  of  the 
universe,  only  because  God  Himself  falls  short 
of  the  universality  of  the  me  :  /.  e.  cannot  pre- 
tend, in  vulgar  parlance,  to  be  near  so  great  a 
swell.  Schelling  transformed  Fichte's  subjective 
scheme  into  one  of  objective  idealism,  without 
in  the  least  degree  arraigning,  or  even  suspect- 
ing, the  egregious  scientific  blunder  or  fallacy 
of  observation  on  which  it  was  based.  In  fact 
Schelling  merely  affirmed  in  contradiction  to 
Fichte  the  coreality  of  subject  and  object,  or 
man  and  nature  :  the  affirmation  being  just  as 
barren  of  philosophic  consequences  strictly  speak- 
ing as  its  predecessor  had  been;  since  its  author 
had  no  sooner  vindicated  the  joint  and  equal  sci- 
entific validity  of  subject  and  object  or  of  man 
and  nature,  than  he  at  once  proceeded  to  demon- 
strate their  joint  and  equal  philosophic  invalid- 
ity, by  resolving  them  both  into  an  inconceivable 
transcendental  identity  or  indifference,  which,  in- 
stead of  vivifying  them  both,  simply  obliterates 
or  neutralizes  them  both  ;  and  which  he  there- 
upon calls  The  Absolute  ;  in  fact  the  head  of 
that  distinguished  family  of  Absolutes  of  whom 


35^       T/j^  Tcsti?no?iy  of  Sense  one  thing: 

Sheridan's  Sir  Anthony  was  a  diminished  speci- 
men. Thus  it  was  however  that  ScheUing  labo- 
riously cleared  the  way  for  that  unscrupulous 
juggle  of  "the  identity  of  contradictories "  — 
7.  e.  the  identity  of  yes  and  no,  white  and  black, 
true  and  false,  good  and  evil,  right  and  wrong  — 
which  was  soon  in  the  hands  of  a  hardier  thau- 
maturgist  to  arrest  the  intellectual  progress,  and 
even  undo  the  intellectual  existence,  of  the  race; 
not  merely  by  confounding  God  with  the  uni- 
verse and  proving  creation  in  any  sincere  sense 
of  the  term  an  abject  swindle  :  for  all  this  had 
been  already  gleefully  accomplished  by  ScheU- 
ing :  but  by  converting  our  very  faculty  of 
knowledge  itself  upon  which  we  fondly  relied 
to  give  us  eternal  conjunction  with  God,  into  a 
faculty  of  unlimited  self-deception  merely:  /.  e. 
into  a  guarantee  of  our  eternal  and  most  right- 
eous incorporation  in  the  devil. 

But  we  have  by  no  means  done  with  Kant. 

What  I  want  to  bring  my  reader  clearly  to  see 
in  the  end,  is,  that  Kant's  analysis  of  knowledge 
vitiates  the  integrity  of  the  mind  or  destroys  its 
unity,  simply  by  making  consciousness  repro- 
duce —  instead  of  annul  —  the  fallacious  separa- 
tion which  sense  organizes  between  man  and 
nature.  To  Kant's  senses  he  himself  existed 
within  the  visible  limits  of  his  own  body ;  na- 
ture existed  without  those  limits;  and  God 
existed  (if  indeed  any  such  existence  were)  still 
without  the  limits  of  nature.  This  is  all  very 
harmless  and  inevitable.  The  foundations  of 
the  mind  are  laid  in  sense,  and  he  who  quarrels 


that  of  Consciousness  another.  35'9 

with  them  because  they  are  directly  fallacious 
and  only  inversely  true,  forgets  that  the  founda- 
tion of  every  edifice  physical  or  mental  would 
be  plainly  inadequate  to  its  function,  unless  what 
was  ceiling  to  itself  became  floor  to  the  super- 
structure ;  or  what  was  heaven  to  the  one  be- 
came earth  to  the  other.  So  far  then  Kant  is 
blameless. 

But  Kant  instantly  ceases  to  be  blameless 
when  he  proceeds  to  reproduce  this  necessity  of 
the  foundation  in  the  freedom  of  the  superstruc- 
ture itself,  by  reorganizing  sense  in  the  outraged 
lineaments  of  consciousness.  Sense  divides 
where  consciousness  unites ;  and  to  represent 
the  one  therefore  as  simply  reflecting  the  verdict 
of  the  other,  is  virtually  to  stop  the  growth  of 
the  mind  and  fix  it  in  infancy.  Physically,  or 
to  my  own  senses  and  those  of  other  men,  I 
exist  in  one  place  and  nature  in  another.  But 
mentally  or  to  my  own  rational  consciousness  I 
^m  consubstantiate  and  coextensive  with  nature 
in  all  time  and  all  space,  having  no  life  but  what 
she  imparts.  She  supplies  every  sensation  every 
emotion  every  perception  I  experience  ;  in  short 
my  sensibility  and  intelligence  are  completely 
filled  out  and  vivified  with  her  substance,  so 
that  a  conscious  unity  reigns  where  sense  records 
only  a  lifeless  duality.  Descartes  made  thought 
the  argument  of  existence.  Cogito,  ergo  sum. 
Yes,  but  this  reasoning  avails  to  nature  quite  as 
much  as  to  myself;  since  thought  is  always  con- 
crete never  abstract,  /.  e.  presents  me  and  nature 
in  indissoluble  unity.     Thought  is  always  com- 


360  Kant  remorselessly  confounds 

posite  never  simple  ;  a  product  of  marriage  not 
of  concubinage  ;  in  short  a  fact  of  most  orderly 
relation  and  therefore  of  unity  between  two  sen- 
sibly divided  existences,  never  of  mere  disorderly 
finiteness  and  disunion.  "  I  think,"  says  Des- 
cartes. "But  what  do  you  think?"  I  reply. 
"You  cannot  think  nothing.  If  you  think,  you 
are  bound  to  think  something  :  which  something 
is  furnished  you  either  l,  by  nature  directly  ;  or 
2,  by  God  as  imagined  by  you  under  natural 
attributes;  or  else  3,  by  yourself  as  similarly 
imagined :  so  that  nature  may  be  said  to  furnish 
directly  or  indirectly  the  whole  substance  or  body 
of  your  thought,  while  you  yourself  give  it  mere 
visible  surface  or  cuticle.  Thus  you  may  think 
things  which  are  directly  presented  in  sense,  such 
as  stones  or  trees  or  horses  or  houses  or  lands  or 
waters  :  or  you  may  think  things  which  are  only 
indirectly  presented  there,  /.  e.  re-presented ; 
namely  rational  things,  such  as  goodness  and 
truth,  evil  and  falsity,  simplicity  and  deceit, 
magnanimity  and  meanness,  pride  and  humility, 
chastity  and  uncleanness:  but  whether  you  think 
one  or  the  other,  the  process  of  your  thought  is 
invariably  concrete  not  discrete,  and  forbids  you 
accordingly  to  allege  within  its  own  living  or 
conscious  limits  the  distribution  of  object  and 
subject,  or  the  duality  of  nature  and  man." 

Now  Kant,  practically  at  least,  ignored  this 
all-important  truth,  in  persistently  separating  be- 
tween the  subject  and  object  of  knowledge,  or 
in  representing  knowledge  not  as  evidencing  a 
mental  unity  in  the  midst  of  a  physical  diversity, 


'Things  so  essentially  distin£f.  361 

but  as  organizing  a  most  real  and  substantial  di- 
versity where  sense  ordains  only  a  seeming  and 
formal  one.  I  have  no  doubt  for  my  own  part 
that  he  also  theoretically  ignored  the  truth  of 
the  case;  for  although  he  in  terms  acknowledges 
nature  as  contributing  the  matter  of  knowledge 
while  we  contribute  only  its  form,  he  yet  organ- 
izes such  a  controversy  between  these  livingly 
united  elements,  as  plainly  proves  that  he  for  his 
part  conceives  that  puny  and  pedantic  reflex  of 
the  truth  upon  his  understanding,  to  be  the  vital 
truth  itself:  thus  reducing  knowledge  from  a 
purely  synthetic  to  a  purely  analytic  function,  or 
swamping  consciousness,  which  affirms  both  in- 
finite and  finite,  both  absolute  and  relative,  in 
sense,  which  affirms  only  the  finite  and  relative. 
In  short  Kant  regarded  the  mind  as  strictly  an 
individual  possession,  and  never  suspected  its 
universal  scientific  unity.  He  looked  upon  his 
own  mind  as  shut  up  spatially  to  his  corporeal 
limits,  so  that  he  as  a  mental  subject  not  less 
than  a  physical  one  might  be  said  to  exist  in 
time  and  space,  or  claim  to  be  only  here  and 
now  while  nature  was  everywhere  and  always. 
He  had  not  the  remotest  idea  that  nature  reflects 
the  united  and  entire  mental  personality  of  the 
race,  and  that  he  himself  consequently  had  no 
mind  apart  from  nature :  on  the  contrary  he 
maintained  that  we  by  the  forms  of  our  sensibil- 
ity and  understanding  furnished  the  entire  per- 
sonality of  nature,  and  consequently  viewed 
himself  as  absolutely,  or  within  the  spatial  di- 
mensions of  his  body,  a  seeing,  hearing,  smell- 


362  He  thought  F/?ute  and  Relative 

ing,  tasting,  and  touching,  in  short,  knowing, 
subject  ;  and  then  as  simply  applying  these 
absolute  faculties  to  natural   things. 

Perhaps  we  may  illustrate  Kant's  philosophic 
insolvency  more  succinctly  to  the  reader's  appre- 
hension by  saying,  that  he  conceived  the  finite 
and  relative  to  be  one  and  the  same  existence, 
or  at  all  events  looked  upon  the  latter  as  bearing 
a  direct  and  not  an  inverse  ratio  to  the  former. 
His  habitual  though  no  doubt  inconsiderate  iden- 
tification of  science  whose  testimony  is  wholly 
of  the  relative,  with  sense  whose  witness  is 
wholly  of  the  finite,  warrants  us  perfectly  to  say 
that  such  practically  at  least  was  his  error.  And 
no  error  can  be  more  disastrous  to  Philosophy, 
since  it  vacates  the  only  basis  to  which  Philoso- 
phy may  lay  claim,  namely,  the  distinctively  sci- 
entific evolution  of  the  human  mind.  Existence 
or  the  finite  is  given  in  sense,  and  in  sense  alone. 
Life  or  the  relative  is  given  in  consciousness, 
and  consciousness  alone.  Existence  is  presup- 
posed in  life,  the  finite  is  presupposed  in  the 
relative,  just  as  sense  is  presupposed  in  conscious- 
ness :  and  for  that  very  reason  there  can  be  no 
direct  but  only  an  inverse  accord  between  them, 
precisely  like  that  which  exists  between  a  house 
and  its  foundation,  or  between  substance  and 
shadow.  Science  accordingly,  as  concerned 
only  with  the  higher  phenomenon  of  life  or  the 
relative,  takes  existence  or  the  finite  for  granted; 
using  the  materials  which  sense  supplies  without 
the  least  distrust  of  their  absoluteness.  But  let 
sense  beware  how  she  presumes  upon  this  good- 


to  he  one  and  the  same  Conception.      363 

natured  attitude  of  science !  Let  her  take  good 
heed  lest  she  desert  her  own  humble  province, 
which  is  that  of"  attesting  the  finite  exclusively, 
and  assume  on  that  experience  to  attest  the  rela- 
tive as  well !  For  science  in  that  case  must 
instantly  pronounce  her  a  false  witness.  Sense 
is  perfectly  competent  to  attest  facts  of  simple 
or  disunited  existence,  facts  of  body  in  other 
words  :  and  within  all  this  range  consequently 
her  testimony  is  absolute  over  all  but  metaphysi- 
cians and  madmen.  But  the  moment  she  at- 
tempts to  suggest  a  fact  of  life  or  soul,  which  is 
a  composite  fact,  a  fact  of  relation  and  therefore 
of  order,  she  makes  herself  simply  ridiculous. 
She  reveals  to  us  sun  moon  and  stars  existing 
each  in  visible  contrast  or  oppugnancy  to  the 
others;  but  if  she  goes  on  to  allege  the  scientific 
order  which  nevertheless  binds  these  discordant 
bodies  in  the  unity  of  a  pervasive  soul  or  life, 
she  is  sure  to  turn  the  truth  literally  and  exactly 
upside  down. 

Now  Kant  was  practically  indifferent  to  this 
all-important  mental  hierarchy.  He  thought 
that  the  relative  as  well  as  the  finite  —  facts  of 
logical  ratio  or  order  as  well  as  facts  of  palpable 
existence  or  body — were  given  in  sense;  thus 
that  the  analogy  of  one  to  the  other  was  always 
direct  never  inversive  :  and  he  consequently 
plunged  —  drawing  the  unsuspecting  and  even 
jubilant  Sir  William  after  him  —  into  a  tipsy 
scientific  imbroglio  only  to  be  rivalled  by  the 
folly  of  an  architect,  who,  fancying  a  house  to 
be  a  mere  extension  of  its  foundation,  a  direct 


364  Consciousness  marries 

and  not  an  inverse  projection  of  its  base,  should 
insist  upon  building  it  downwards  instead  of 
upwards  ;  or  by  that  of  a  pedant,  who,  looking 
upon  his  coat  and  trousers  as  a  direct  and  not 
inverted  form  of  his  body,  as  a  continuation  and 
not  a  correspondence  of  his  person,  should  insist 
upon  wearing  those  astonished  garments  inside 
out.  It  was  in  fact  the  inveterate  because  un- 
suspected error  of  both  of  these  distinguished 
men,  as  it  is  of  all  men  whose  attention  has 
never  been  given  to  the  subject,  to  confound  the 
rational  or  composite  in  experience  with  the 
finite  or  simple,  thus  to  dissolve  life  in  mere 
existence,  or  swamp  the  spiritual  and  generative 
element  in  consciousness  in  its  strictly  material 
and  passive  constitutional  conditions.  They 
both  of  them  saw  very  clearly  that  every  fact 
of  mere  existence  or  physics  as  given  in  sense, 
involves  a  dual  or  divided  parentage  ;  that  is  to 
say,  exhibits  its  objective  element  falling  appar- 
ently without  never  within  its  subjective  element. 
But  they  neither  of  them  ever  saw  —  what  how- 
ever is  of  much  nearer  concern  to  Philosophy  — 
that  every  fact  of  life  or  metaphysics  as  given  in 
consciousness,  presents  an  inextinguishable  fu- 
sion or  unity  of  these  previously  divided  ele- 
ments —  how'?  simply  by  operating  the  thorough 
interioration  of  the  objective  one  to  the  subjec- 
tive.    Let  me  explain. 

I  perceive  the  rose.  Here  is  a  verbal  propo- 
sition reciting  a  strictly  unitary  fact  of  percep- 
tion, /.  e.  of  life,  existing  only  in  consciousness, 
in  language  borrowed  from  sense.     It  recites  a 


what  Sense  divorces.  365 

pure  fact  of  marriage,  and  therefore  exclusively 
of  relation,  in  terms  belonging  to  simple  unwed- 
ded  existence;  analyzing  it  back  from  the  unity 
it  presents  in  consciousness  to  the  disjunction  it 
exhibits  in  sense.  Sense  puts  me  here  and  the 
rose  there  :  that  is,  it  exteriorates  object  to  sub- 
ject or  postpones  substance  to  form.  To  my 
senses  I  exist  in  hopeless  disunion  with  nature, 
the  rose  being  invariably  in  one  place  and  I  in 
another;  so  that  no  possibility  offers  of  any  sen- 
sible coalition  between  us.  And  reason  of  course 
so  long  as  it  is  in  abeyance  to  the  mere  light  of 
Nature,  repeats  the  servile  lesson  and  fills  science 
with  the  echo  of  an  eternal  discord.  But  spir- 
itually the  truth  is  exactly  opposite.  To  my 
living  consciousness,  (of  course  not  to  my  mem- 
ory or  merely  reflective  one,  with  which  Kant 
and  Sir  William  Hamilton  commonly  confound 
it)  I  am  indissolubly  one  with  nature  ;  the  men- 
tal or  metaphysical  experience  called  sight  or 
smell  or  hearing  or  taste  or  touch,  being  nothing 
but  the  literal  consummation  of  a  spiritual  mar- 
riage between  us  so  intimate  and  vital  that  only 
the  absolute  decease  of  the  parties  can  dissolve 
it.  Life  annuls  within  its  own  limits  the  sensi- 
ble distinction  between  me  and  nature,  by  bring- 
ing nature  within  my  subjectivity  or  making  it 
vivify  my  intelligence.  I  should  be  literally 
uninformed  with  mind  or  soul,  which  is  life, 
unless  the  patent  disunion  enacted  between  me 
and  nature  by  sense,  gave  way  to  the  higher 
latent  unity  revealed  in  consciousness.  Con- 
sciousness, the  living  consciousness,  always  posits 


366  Kant  reduces  Philosophy 

me  mentally  or  psychically,  as  made  up  and  con- 
stituted of  my  natural  sensibilities  and  suscepti- 
bilities, so  that  in  dissolving  the  unity  between 
me  and  nature,  you  literally  discharge  me  of 
soul  or  life.  Every  fact  of  mental  experience 
accordingly  blends  me  and  nature  in  indissoluble 
unity,  whatever  previous  disunion  mere  sense 
ordains  between  us  ;  and  Kant  only  proves  his 
own  thorough  misconception  of  the  truth,  when 
he  interprets  the  experience  into  a  fact  of  di- 
vorce instead  of  marriage.  The  truth  is  that 
Kant  merely  dissects  the  dead  body  of  an  expe- 
rience after  its  living  or  unitary  soul  has  fled  ; 
and  finding  naturally  enough  no  evidence  there 
of  the  marriage  which  life  alone  constitutes,  he 
makes  the  tie  between  man  and  nature  to  have 
been  one  of  dry  and  hopeless  celibacy  on  both 
sides ;  or  if  he  permits  it  to  be  spiritually  pro- 
lific in  any  case  it  is  only  par  amours  and  never 
by  any  inwardly  authenticated  nuptials.  In  this 
poor  pedantic  way,  fumbling  within  the  disor- 
ganized carcass  of  an  experience  to  catch  the 
perished  odor  of  its  life,  Kant  and  Sir  William 
Hamilton  succeeded  at  last  to  their  perfect  satis- 
faction in  reducing  the  man  of  science  to  a  coro- 
ner, and  the  philosopher  to  an  undertaker.  The 
insufferable  airs  of  all-sufficiency  which  Sir  Wil- 
liam especially  puts  on  as  he  now  flourishes  the 
scalpel  of  the  former,  now  wields  the  pickaxe 
and  spade  of  the  latter,  while  they  dispel  all 
doubt  that  his  notions  of  Philosophy  owed  much 
less  to  his  soft  warm  broad  human  heart,  than  to 
his  hard  cold  narrow   Scotch  head,   would  be 


to  a  Requiem  for  the  Dead.  367 

purely  ludicrous  if  they  had  not  the  power  which 
all  false  pretension  has  in  proportion  to  its  auda- 
city, to  impose  upon  the  servile  imagination  of 
scholars. 

What  can  be  more  clear  than  that  the  living 
perception  in  question  (my  perception  of  the 
rose)  does  not  reproduce,  but  on  the  contrary 
completely  annuls  within  its  own  precincts  the 
duality  or  distance  which  sense  alleges  between 
me  and  nature,  by  converting  it  into  an  inextin- 
guishable mental  unity  ?  Life  to  be  sure  does 
not  war  with  existence,  consciousness  with 
sense.  The  former  merely  unites  what  the 
latter  divides.  Such  is  the  perpetual  miracle 
of  life  reflected  in  consciousness.  Existence 
as  given  in  sense  makes  nature  fall  without 
my  subjectivity,  so  impoverishing  me  by  all 
her  wealth.  Life  on  the  other  hand  as  given 
in  consciousness  reverses  this  ungenerous  de- 
cree, or  presents  nature  so  intimately  fused  and 
blent  with  myself  that  it  is  no  longer  possi- 
ble for  me  consciously  to  discriminate  between 
us,  both  of  us  in  fact  becoming  indissolubly 
married  in  what  is  called  my  mind  or  intelli- 
gence, /.  e.  my  mental  personality.  Life  and 
mind  are  convertible  terms.  Science  brings 
all  nature  within  the  realm  of  mind,  or  stamps 
it  with  the  unity  of  a  man.  What  we  call 
the  laws  of  Nature  are  in  truth  projections 
of  our  own  mind  exclusively,  claiming  an  ob- 
jective validity  to  us  individually  only  because 
the  mental  unity  they  express  is  that  of  the 
race   and   not    of   the   individual.       When    the 


368        Nature  is  a  mere  Correspondence 

man  of  science  attributes  certain  facts  of  na- 
ture to  what  he  calls  the  influence  of  gravi- 
tation, he  has  or  should  have  no  intention  to 
intimate  that  there  is  any  such  thing  in  na- 
ture, any  such  substance  or  entity,  as  gravi- 
tation. The  w^ord  marks  a  mere  mental  gen- 
eralization on  our  part  of  certain  widely 
diffused  and  various  facts  of  experience,  the 
generalization  itself  being  only  an  instinctive 
effort  of  the  common  or  associate  mind  of 
the  race  to  indue  itself,  by  the  instrumental- 
ity of  the  individual  mind,  with  that  perfect 
scientific  form  or  order  which  shall  constitute 
its  own  eventual  and  permanent  self-conscious- 
ness. All  these  generalizations  of  our  natu- 
ral experience  are  only  so  many  approxima- 
tions, on  the  part  of  the  common  mind  of 
the  race,  to  the  recognition  of  its  own  univer- 
sality and  unity.  Nature  is  but  the  spiritual 
man  turned  inside  out,  or  the  contents  of  his 
otherwise  unknown  and  unimaginable  spiritual 
personality  revealed  to  his  senses.  It  is  not 
a  substance,  but  the  shadow  of  a  substance 
whose  reality  is  altogether  spiritual.  Yet  when 
you  see  the  energy  with  which  our  so-called 
philosophers  pursue  cause  to  its  last  fastness, 
and  seek  to  waylay  heat  and  take  light  cap- 
tive in  the  web  of  their  cunning  devices,  or 
bleat  forth  idle  prayers  to  know  what  after  all 
is  electricity  and  what  magnetism,  you  must 
inevitably  infer  that  the  living  and  unitary  sub- 
stance they  seek  under  all  these  shifting  forms, 
the  absolute  personality  they  demand  under  all 


of  the  Things  of  the  Mind.  369 

these  Protean  disguises,  is  altogether  physical 
and  not  mental.  Never  was  a  grosser  hallucina- 
tion. The  unity  which  underlies  and  animates 
all  the  so-called  forces  of  nature,  is  exclusively 
human  and  not  physical,  belonging  to  the  sphere 
of  consciousness  not  of  sense,  being  nothing 
more  nor  less  than  the  unity  of  the  universal 
human  mind  itself.  These  things  are  only  so 
many  flashings-forth  through  the  chinks  of  sense 
and  reason,  of  a  great  spiritual  fact  too  subtle 
ever  to  be  otherwise  apprehended,  namely,  the 
unity  or  personality  of  the  great  race  itself  They 
are  none  of  them  things  which  exist  in  nature  : 
they  are  all  of  them  only  so  many  revelations  or 
inverted  images  of  itself  which  the  human  mind 
projects  upon  the  mirror  of  natural  fact,  and  by 
means  of  which  it  will  ultimately  come  to  a  true 
self-consciousness ;  or  what  is  the  same  thing,  to 
the  recognition  of  life  as  exclusively  spiritual  in 
substance,  while  material  only  in  form  or  appear- 
ance, out  of  deference  to  the  needs  of  our  nascent 
intelligence.  Science  is  only  a  blind  instinctive 
groping  under  the  flickering  guidance  of  reason 
after  this  most  human  unity  which  subtends  all 
the  disjointed  facts  of  existence  and  gives  them 
life.^  From  the  lowest  or  most  diffused  and 
therefore  most  inhuman  type  of  life  exhibited  in 
nature  which  is  gravitation,  up  to  its  highest  or 

1  The  well-meant,  efforts    of  cessantly    haunted,    must    prove 

Mr.  Grove  Mr.   Faraday  and  a  simply  abortive,  so  long  as  they 

thousand    similar    conscientious  look  upon   Nature    as  involving 

men  of  science,  to  lay  this  ghost  her  own  substance,  or  confessing 

of  a  unitary   or  presiding   natu-  any    unity   out    of    the    human 

ral  force  by  which  they  are  in-  mind. 
24 


370  Man  the  Unity  cf  Nature. 

most  concentrated  and  therefore  most  human 
type,  which  is  spontaneity,  science  sees  not  na- 
ture but  man,  and  consequently  demands  of  Phi- 
losophy a  metaphysics  which  shall  no  longer  ex- 
clude physics,  but  reverently  accept  its  slightest 
admonition. 


CHAPTER   XXI. 

If  the  foregoing  considerations  be  well 
weighed,  I  think  the  reader  will  not  fail  to 
agree  with  me,  that  the  regulative  authority 
which  Kant  claims  for  the  subjective  element 
in  knowledge  over  the  objective  element,  turns 
out  a  purely  chimerical  pretension  ;  is  in  fact 
the  exact  opposite  of  the  truth.  For  whenever 
and  wherever  the  relation  of  object  and  subject 
befalls,  the  former  term  of  the  relation  will  al- 
ways be  found  to  claim  of  strictest  right  the 
prior  interior  and  controlling  place,  while  the 
latter  spontaneously  sinks  to  a  secondary  and 
subordinate  one.  I  can  hardly  bring  myself  to 
believe  that  Kant  ever  exercised  a  deliberate 
scrutiny  upon  the  mental  experience  in  question, 
so  little  does  the  fact  of  the  case  justify  his  anal- 
ysis. Thus,  I  perceive  the  rose  ;  or  I  think  the 
rose.  This  perception,  says  Kant,  or  this  thought 
involves  two  antagonist  elements:  l,  you  the 
seeing  or  thinking  subject;  and  2,  the  rose, 
which  is  the  seen  or  thought  object :  and  of 
these  two  the  former  rightfully  controls  the 
latter.  The  first  of  these  statements  as  we  have 
already  seen  is  practically  fallacious  and  mislead- 
ing: the  last  is  simply  untrue.  The  former 
statement  is  fallacious,  because  Kant  treats  the 


37-2  Jlleged  Duality   of  Man 

alleged  involution  of  these  antagonist  elements 
as  a  fact  practically  of  evolution  ;  and  the  latter 
statement  is  untrue,  because  wherever  the  rela- 
tion of  object  and  subject  is  legitimately  evolved, 
the  former  element  invariably  commands  the 
prior  interior  and  controlling  place,  while  the 
latter  spontaneously  seeks  a  wholly  secondary  or 
subordinate  one. 

I.  It  seems  hardly  worth  while  to  dwell  any 
longer  upon  the  former  of  these  errors,  since  the 
reader  must  by  this  time  have  become  con- 
vinced that  no  fact  of  life,  as  such,  can  evolve 
the  sensible  discrimination  of  subject  and  object, 
or  man  and  nature  ;  simply  because  it  constitu- 
tionally involves  such  discrimination,  and  to 
evolve  it  therefore  would  be  to  yield  up  its  life, 
or  sacrifice  all  that  is  characteristic  about  it  as 
distinct  from  mere  existence.  Every  fact  of 
perception  or  thought,  /.  e.  of  life,  involves  on 
its  mere  physical  or  constitutional  side  the  sensi- 
ble discrimination  in  question  ;  but  do  you  not 
see  that  if  you  make  it  go  on  to  reproduce  that 
discrimination  metaphysically  or  consciously  as 
well,  you  perpetually  adjourn  its  individuality, 
or  discharge  it  of  life,  since  all  conscious  life  or 
individuality  proceeds  upon  the  absolute  fusion 
of  subject  and  object,  or  man  and  nature  '?  How 
could  such  reproduction  take  place  indeed  ex- 
cept in  reflective  form  ?  For  the  discrimination 
already  exists  as  a  fact  of  sense  :  to  reproduce  it 
therefore  in  the  higher  realm  of  consciousness 
would  be  greatly  to  impoverish  consciousness, 
by  making  it  a  mere  reflection  of  sense.     Con- 


and  Nature  in  Consciousness.  373 

sciousness  differs  from  sense  in  that  it  unites 
what  the  latter  divides ;  it  is  in  every  case  a 
marriage  between  things  which  are  previously 
given  singly  in  sense ;  so  that  to  represent  it  as 
reproducing  this  sensible  discrimination  would 
be  like  representing  marriage  to  consist  of  di- 
vorce. Sense  asserts  the  existing  difference  of 
subject  and  object,  or  man  and  nature ;  con- 
sciousness their  living  unity.  Life  is  the  unity 
of  object  and  subject,  just  as  water  is  the  unity 
of  oxygen  and  hydrogen,  the  unity  being  a  con- 
jugal one  in  both  cases.  But  surely  conjugality 
does  not  imply  but  on  the  contrary  excludes  the 
bare  conception  of  divorce.  Divorce  ensues 
only  where  conjugality  ceases.  If  then  he  would 
be  an  undoubted  dolt,  scientifically,  who  should 
represent  water  as  a  product  of  the  distinction 
between  oxygen  and  hydrogen,  water  itself  be- 
ing the  absolute  fusion  or  indistinguishable  unity 
of  those  substances :  so  he  must  be  a  much 
greater  dolt,  philosophically,  who  interprets  life 
into  the  sensible  discrimination  of  subject  and 
object,  or  man  and  nature  :  for  life  presents  a  far 
more  intense  marriage  of  subject  and  object,  a 
far  more  vivid  and  dazzling  fusion  of  man  and 
nature,  than  water  can  pretend  to  present  of  oxy- 
gen and  hydrogen.  The  bare  offer  of  such  an 
interpretation  in  fact  proves  the  offerer  incompe- 
tent even  to  the  recognition  of  the  true  problem, 
let  alone  its  discussion  :  since  it  shows  him  de- 
liberately reducing  it  from  one  of  life  to  one  of 
mere  existence,  or  degrading  it  out  of  the  realm 
of  consciousness  into  that  of  sense. 


374  i?^<a:/  Unity  of  Man  and 

Still  let  us  linger  upon  the  mistake  a  little 
longer,  if  by  so  doing  I  may  more  fully  illustrate 
the  truth  upon  the  subject. 

We  have  already  seen  that  every  fact  of  life 
whatever,  that  is,  every  mental  experience  of 
every  kind  implying  the  intercourse  of  body  and 
soul  in  its  subject,  presupposes  to  that  extent  a 
marriage-fusion  between  object  and  subject  so 
intimate  or  vital,  that  it  is  impossible  to  distrib- 
ute the  parties  to  it,  or  say  how  much  of  the 
experience  is  contributed  by  one  and  how  much 
by  the  other.  Every  act  of  life  or  conscious- 
ness, just  because  it  is  the  offspring  of  this  inter- 
nal or  spiritual  marriage  between  man  and  na- 
ture, presupposes  in  order  to  its  own  genesis  the 
outward  or  sensible  diversity  of  the  parties  to 
the  marriage,  that  is  to  say,  presupposes  the  log- 
ical copulation  of  an  active  object  (nature)  with 
a  passive  or  reactive  subject  (man).  In  short 
every  such  fact  of  life  or  consciousness  involves 
constitutionally  or  in  order  to  its  own  develop- 
ment and  manifestation,  the  dual  parentage  in 
question :  but  for  that  reason  it  cannot  actively 
or  livingly  ^-volve  it.  Precisely  this  however  is 
Kant's  mistake.  He  makes  life  evolve  existence 
not  involve  it ;  the  child  evolve  its  parents  in- 
stead of  involve  them  ;  and  by  a  necessary  fatal- 
ity turns  consciousness  from  a  purely  spiritual 
force  to  a  material  one,  so  converting  infinite 
into  finite,  personality  into  mere  reality,  or  man 
into  a  thing.  Never  was  a  grosser  violence  done 
to  Philosophy.  The  finite  is  one  with  itself  or 
identical :  how  is  it  possible  to  allege  therefore 


Nature  in  Consciousness.  375 

within  its  proper  limits  the  logical  contradiction 
of  subject  and  object,  of  the  me  and  the  not- 
me  ?  The  finite  is  the  exclusive  realm  of  the 
me,  /.  e.  of  subjectivity;  the  infinite  of  the  not- 
me,  /.  e.  of  objectivity.  Every  thing  in  nature 
says  me  with  equal  pertinency  though  with  un- 
equal emphasis.  The  mineral  says  it  by  its 
gravitation  or  vis  inertia  ;  the  vegetable  by  its 
sensibility;  the  animal  by  its  volition;  man  by 
his  spontaneity.  One  form  of  finite  existence 
may  thus  be  more  or  less  sharply  defined  than 
another,  but  differ  as  they  may  in  this  respect, 
they  are  all  alike  remote  from  the  infinite.  The 
elephant  because  it  claims  a  longer  life  and  a 
larger  body  than  the  flea,  or  involves  in  its  ex- 
istence more  of  time  and  space,  exhibits  the 
finite  principle  in  greater  measure ;  but  he  is 
not  thereby  the  more  nearly  approximated  to 
the  infinite.  On  the  contrary  if  any  difference 
could  exist  in  that  regard,  it  would  be  to  his 
disadvantage,  inasmuch  as  he  is  the  more  finite 
of  the  two.  The  elephant  indeed  is  an  inferior 
form  of  animation  to  the  flea,  because  its  exist- 
ence is  so  much  more  largely  implicative  of 
lower  forms  of  life  ;  just  as  an  animal  double 
the  bulk  of  the  elephant  and  twice  as  long- 
lived,  would  pronounce  itself  an  inferior  form 
of  animality  to  him,  by  exhibiting  double  his 
own  appropriation  of  vegetable  and  mineral 
characteristics.  But  these  are  all  merely  vari- 
ous grades  of  the  Finite,  not  with  reference  to 
the  infinite,  but  within  itself;  for  the  greatest 
conceivable   intensity  of  the   finite    constitutes, 


37^  The  Obje^ive  sphere  in  Life 

not  the  greatest  nearness  to,  but  the  greatest  re- 
moteness from,  the  Infinite,  Infinity  implies 
not  the  totality  of  Space,  but  its  revocation  or 
disappearance  ;  just  as  Eternity  implies  not  the 
endless  potential! zation  of  Time,  but  its  sheer 
consumption  and  denial. 

II.  The  second  point  made  by  Kant  in  the 
foregoing  analysis  of  perception,  is  even  more 
frivolous,  and  need  detain  us  but  a  moment.  It 
is  that  what  he  calls  the  subjective  element  in 
every  living  transaction  dominates  of  right  what 
he  calls  the  objective  element :  thus  that  when  I 
perceive  the  rose  my  faculty  of  perception,  con- 
sidered as  spatially  isolated  to  my  organization, 
controls  or  shapes  the  rose  considered  as  spa- 
tially isolated  from  my  organization,  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  confer  upon  the  rose  all  its  qual- 
ity, or  deprive  it  of  substantive  character. 

Now  Kant's  initial  blunder  here,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  consists  in  his  confounding  a  fact 
of  consciousness  and  therefore  of  fusion  or  unity, 
with  a  fact  of  sense  and  therefore  of  division  or 
disunion.  But  allowing  this  to  pass  for  the  mo- 
ment, and  accepting  for  the  sake  of  argument 
his  preposterous  distribution  of  subject  and  ob- 
ject in  consciousness  as  valid,  still  the  inference 
which  he  draws  from  it  as  to  the  regulative  au- 
thority of  the  subject  over  the  object,  is  intensely 
and  scandalously  fallacious.  It  is  always  the 
objective  element  in  life  which  regulates  or 
shapes  the  subjective  element,  never  the  con- 
trary. It  is  the  rose  which  in  the  act  of  knowl- 
edge or  perception  holds  the  prior  or  command- 


always  controls  the  Subje^ive.  377 

ing  place ;  it  is  my  (so-called)  "  faculty "  of 
knowledge  or  perception  which  holds  the  alto- 
gether secondary  and  submissive  place.  Noth- 
ing but  the  most  unquestioning  acquiescence  in 
the  dictation  of  sense,  can  account  for  the  oppo- 
site conclusion.  It  seems  indeed  hardly  needful 
to  argue  the  point,  a  bare  statement  sufficing  to 
justify  it.  For  clearly  I  as  a  knowing  subject, 
am  constituted  not  by  any  abstract  "  faculty  of 
knowing  "  I  possess,  but  simply  and  sheerly  by 
the  concrete  objects  which  I  know.  These  things 
alone  constitute  the  substance  of  my  knowledge, 
so  that  if  you  deprive  me  of  them,  you  deprive 
me  at  the  same  time,  so  far  as  knowledge  is  con- 
cerned, of  subjective  consciousness  :  though  I 
should  possess  all  the  abstract  "  faculties "  in 
that  direction  conceivable.  My  consciousness, 
as  a  knowing  subject,  is  determined  not  by  any- 
thing in  itself^  but  by  the  things  known.  De- 
prive me  then  of  the  object  of  knowledge,  and 
you  at  once  stifle  my  subjectivity.  I  am  a 
knowing  subject  only  in  so  far  as  some  known 
object  makes  me  one.  To  say  therefore  that  I 
as  subject  regulate  the  object:  that  I  as  know- 
ing qualify  the  thing  known  :  is  very  like  say- 
ing, is  indeed  the  same  thing  in  effect  as  saying, 
that  the  child  qualifies  the  parent,  that  the  cul- 
prit gives  character  to  the  law.  No  doubt  the 
child  implies  the  parent ;  no  doubt  the  culprit 
presupposes  the  law :  but  no  one  can  seriously 
maintain  that  the  child  begets  the  parent;  that 
the  thief  adjudicates  the  legal  property  of  the 
community.     Just  as  little  is  any  one  entitled  to 


378  The  ground  of  Kant's  mistake. 

maintain  that  I  in  knowing  peaches  impart  to 
peaches  their  flavor  and  other  attributes,  or  in 
knowing  anything  else  give  the  thing  known 
the  least  of  its  possessions.  Whatever  it  pos- 
sesses it  possesses  in  the  strictest  independence 
of  me,  and,  so  far  as  I  know  it,  claims  me  as  its 
abject  subject,  incapable  henceforth  of  unknow- 
ing it,  or  throwing  off  such  subjection,  while  to 
the  same  extent  positing  itself  of  course  as  the 
controlling  object  of  my  knowledge. 

The  root  of  Kant's  hallucination  on  this  sub- 
ject and  every  other,  was  his  inveterate  intellect- 
ual habit  of  running  facts  of  life  or  conscious- 
ness into  mere  facts  of  existence  or  sense.  But 
I  have  already  made  this  plain  enough  to  the 
most  ordinary  apprehension,  and  I  will  not  dwell 
upon  it.  Let  us  rather  ask  now  how  this  invet- 
erate intellectual  habit  on  Kant's  part  originated; 
why  Kant  felt  it  thus  necessary  intellectually  to 
construe  facts  of  life  into  facts  of  existence,  or 
make  the  realm  of  physics  no  longer  serve  but 
dominate  that  of  metaphysics. 

The  rationale  of  the  phenomenon  appears  to 
me  very  plain.  Kant  wanted  to  account  for 
existence,  to  explain  creation,  without  resorting 
to  the  Deus  ex  jnackind,  which  is  the  expedient 
of  the  vulgar  theology :  but  having  no  concep- 
tion of  any  more  real  or  spiritual  Deus,  and  be- 
ing much  too  rich  a  man  intellectually  to  accept 
any  help  in  that  line  from  the  Christian  revela- 
tion, he  concluded  to  give  over  working  the 
Deus-hypothesis  altogether,  and  spin  a  creation 
out  of  the   bowels   of  the   creature  himself,   or 


The  ground  of  Kant's  mistake.  379 

excogitate  a  cosmos  on  exclusively  cosmical  data. 
Religion  had  become  such  a  fossil  to  all  intellect- 
ual uses,  had  so  completely  renounced  the  spir- 
itual nurture  of  her  offspring,  that  her  traditional 
testimony  as  to  the  Divine  existence  and  opera- 
tion, confessed  itself  to  his  imagination  a  mere 
party  shibboleth,  a  mere  mercenary  clamor  for 
her  own  vested  interests  ;  and  consequently  left 
him  thoroughly  quit  of  all  obligation  to  her. 
But  though  religion  was  both  unable  and  unwill- 
ing to  show  him  how  God  spiritually  creates 
all  things,  he  had  not  the  least  notion  that  they 
were  uncreated  ;  nor  could  he  at  the  same  time 
believe  that  they  were  self-created  in  the  vulgar 
sense  of  the  word  creation,  since  every  natural 
object  confesses  a  natural  parentage.  What  was 
the  remedy  then  "?  Creation  demanded  an  inter- 
pretation, existence  required  to  be  explained : 
only  such  interpretation  or  explanation  refused 
to  take  place  on  merely  historic  or  actual  princi- 
ples, and  claimed  an  altogether  transcendental 
basis,  claimed  in  fact  the  sanction  of  a  pure- 
ly intellectual  and  hence  purely  unintelligible 
world.  Thus  in  order  to  account  for  existence, 
or  explicate  creation  in  this  transcendental  way, 
we  must  admit  that  the  things  which  appear  to 
us  horses,  roses,  emeralds,  men,  are  not  real 
horses,  real  roses,  real  emeralds,  real  men,  but 
only  phenomenal  ones  shaped  by  our  extortion- 
ate sensibility :  are  not  horses  and  roses  and 
emeralds  and  men  such  as  these  things  are  in- 
themselves,  and  apart  from  our  mischievous  in- 
terference, but  a  set  of  counterfeits  degraded  to 


380  The  ground  of  Kant's  mistake. 

the  level  of  our  degrading  intelligence.  These 
things,  since  they  derive  all  their  qualities  from 
us,  have  no  selfhood,  no  being-in-themselves, 
and  are  consequently  uncreated,  being  pure 
phantasms  or  will-of-the-wisps  bred  of  our  fatu- 
ous sensibility  and  intelHgence.  To  get  accord- 
ingly at  the  true  philosophy  of  creation,  we  must 
demand  a  purely  intellectual  world,  a  world  of 
purely  noumenal  things,  which  we  can  never 
apprehend  either  by  sense  or  reason,  nor  even 
so  much  as  affirm  the  existence  of,  since  exist- 
ence implies  sensible  finiteness  and  logical  order 
or  relation :  but  which  for  that  very  reason  pos- 
sess their  being-in-themselves,  thus  are  real  things, 
and  hence  created. 

In  this  puerile  pedantic  way  Kant  was  de- 
lighted to  reduce  the  sincere  realm  of  Nature  to 
an  intellectual  mirage,  to  convert  her  most  fixed 
and  absolute  existences,  her  most  ample  and  lu- 
minous order  or  harmony,  into  sheer  illusions  of 
our  ignorance  :  so  stamping  all  our  knowledge 
and  all  our  belief  with  permanent  imbecility. 
He  had  as  a  philosopher  two  discordant  orders 
of  facts  to  deal  with :  facts  of  nature  and  facts 
of  history  ;  facts  of  identity  and  facts  of  indi- 
viduality ;  facts  of  existence  and  facts  of  life  ; 
facts  of  sense  and  facts  of  consciousness ;  facts 
of  finiteness  and  facts  of  infinitude;  facts  of 
order  or  relationship,  and  facts  of  personality 
or  absoluteness  :  but  instead  of  marrying  these 
facts  indissolubly  together  and  bringing  out  by 
that  conjunction  a  higher  unity  than  either  series 
by  itself  supplied,  he  was  content  to  swamp  the 


The  ground  of  Kant's  mistake.  381 

higher  series  In  the  lower,  and  so  evade  every 
problem  he  felt  himself  unable  to  solve.  He  is 
like  the  schoolboy  who  throws  his  algebra  in  the 
river  rather  than  face  the  requisitions  of  to-mor- 
row's lesson.  He  would  not  regard  us  as  true 
subjects  of  nature,  because  forsooth  it  pleased 
him  not  to  regard  nature  herself  as  possessing 
any  objective  reality !  Depriving  us  in  this 
rude  hobbledehoy  fashion  of  our  legitimate  nat- 
ural identity,  he  of  course  robs  us  a  fortiori  of 
our  legitimate  spiritual  individuality;  and  hence 
leaves  himself  free  to  draw  at  pleasure  upon  that 
realm  of  transcendental  moonshine,  in  which 
what  he  calls  our  noumena,  or  real  selves, 
breathe  and  browse  in  eternal  unconscious- 
ness. 

The  whole  speculation  is  inexpressibly  childish. 
My  identity  —  whatsoever  gives  me  existence  to 
my  own  consciousness,  enables  me  to  recognize 
myself,  or  say  fne.,  mine,  and  by  implication  there- 
fore thee,  thine  —  belongs  to  Nature,  is  wholly 
contingent  upon  her  sovereign  will.  I  am  con- 
scious only  by  virtue  of  my  natural  senses  or 
organization.  Take  that  away,  and  what  should 
I  know  '?  Take  away  my  knowledge,  and  what 
basis  should  I  have  for  belief?  Take  away 
both  knowledge  and  belief,  both  sense  and  un- 
derstanding, and  how  much  of  me  would  re- 
main? Where  in  that  case  should  I  be,  and 
what  *?  Could  I  be  said  to  be  at  all  indeed  ? 
To  be  sure  some  philosopher  in  search  of  an 
anchorage,  might  allege  that  I  would  still  have 
my  unconscious  being  in  God.     But  my  uncon- 


382  Jre  we  properly  j£live 

scious  being  is  precisely  what  is  not  my  being 
but  God's.  I  have  not  the  slightest  title  to  any 
being  in  myself  but  what  my  consciousness  gives 
me.  Unconscious  being  to  a  created  one  is  con- 
tradictory. My  consciousness  is  what  separates 
me  and  alone  separates  me  from  God,  in  identi- 
fying me  with  Nature  and  Society.  If  conse- 
quently you  take  away  my  bodily  organization, 
which  is  the  sole  ground  of  my  consciousness  or 
alone  identifies  me  with  nature  and  my  fellow- 
man,  you  reduce  me  to  nonentity.  I  should  be 
like  a  house  deprived  of  its  foundation  in  the 
ground,  and  would  at  once  cease  to  be. 

Thus  it  is  nature  which  gives  me  identity, 
and  in  that  gift  insures  me  all  my  power  of  sub- 
sequent spiritual  expansion  or  individuality.  She 
constitutes  me,  not  I  her.  We  know  or  per- 
ceive natural  things  alone,  the  horse,  the  tree, 
the  mountain,  the  cloud,  the  river.  Take  these 
and  similar  natural  things  away,  and  we  should 
know  no-thing;  that  is,  we  should  not  know  at 
all.  Knowledge  does  not  inhere  in  me  apart 
from  my  subjection  to  nature.  I  know  alto- 
gether by  virtue  of  such  subjection.  In  know- 
ing the  rose  for  example  I  put  forth  no  power; 
so  far  as  my  proper  individual  force  or  activity 
is  concerned,  I  am  as  helpless  as  the  babe  un- 
born. I  cannot  help  knowing  it.  My  natural 
organization  endows  me  with  the  knowledge 
without  asking  my  leave.  To  say  therefore  that 
I,  cogitated  apart  from  this  helpless  subjection 
to  nature,  possess  or  put  forth  any  faculty  of 
knowledge,  is  transparent  nonsense.     I  have  no 


or  Passive  in  Knowledge  ?  383 

such  faculty  of  knowing,  because  I  have  no 
such  faculty  of  being.  All  my  sensible  knowl- 
edge, or  sensible  experience  of  every  sort,  is  a 
fact  exclusively  of  my  natural  identity  with,  and 
indistinction  from,  every  other  subject  of  my 
nature ;  and  not  in  the  slightest  degree  of  my 
spiritual  individuality  or  dift'erence  from  them. 
To  all  the  extent  of  my  natural  organization  — 
that  is  to  say,  within  the  entire  range  of  my 
inherited  passions  appetites  and  susceptibilities 
of  every  sort — I  am  an  unmixed  and  helpless 
subject  of  nature,  and  so  far  identical  with  every 
other  subject.  Were  it  not  for  this  fixed  basis 
of  identity  or  community  with  other  men  to  be- 
gin with,  all  my  characteristic  individuality  or 
diversity  from  them,  which  grows  out  of  my 
subsequent  action,  would  be  simply  impossible 
and  inconceivable. 

In  its  last  analysis  then  this  conception  of 
noumenal  existence  is  a  denial,  in  so  far  forth  as 
it  is  predicated,  of  creatureship  :  since  existence 
in-itself  is  precisely  what  no  creature  has  or  can 
have  except  by  creation.  And  if  it  have  it  by 
creation,  then  clearly  the  true  scope  or  object  of 
Philosophy  determines  itself,  with  surprising 
distinctness,  to  be  the  creative  perfection  itself 
exclusively,  from  which  so  marvellous  a  boon 
proceeds.  If  the  spiritual  individuality  which 
all  existence  reveals  be  the  true  quest  of  Philos- 
ophy, (as  its  natural  identity  is  the  true  quest 
of  science),  you  cannot  of  course  trace  that  in- 
dividuality to  the  creative  infinitude,  without 
making  this  infinitude  henceforth  the  sole  legiti- 


384  Noumenal  Existence 

mate  aim  of  Philosophy.  Here  it  was  egre- 
giously  that  Kant  stumbled,  and  by  stumbling 
brought  all  his  servile  followers  into  a  confused 
ignominious  heap  on  top  of  him.  He  utterly 
misconceived  the  true  mission  of  Philosophy. 
He  supposed  it  had  to  do  directly  with  the  crea- 
ture and  only  indirectly  with  the  creator;  where- 
as the  exact  converse  of  this  proposition  is  true. 
He  conceived  in  other  words  that  the  true  search 
of  Philosophy  was  into  what  gave  the  creature 
natural  identity  or  subjective  consciousness,  and 
not  what  gave  it  spiritual  individuality  or  objec- 
tive being  out  of  that  natural  identity  ;  so  hope- 
lessly swamping  his  pursuit  in  science,  or  sinking 
the  philosopher  in  the  pedant.  The  sole  prob- 
lem of  Philosophy  is  creation  :  is  to  ascertain 
how  the  infinite  creator  imparts  finite  form  to 
the  creature ;  a  form  which  shall  be  the  crea- 
ture's own  and  separate  him  to  all  eternity  from 
the  creator.  It  is  obvious  that  no  amount  of  scru- 
tiny into  the  creature's  natural  constitution  will 
avail  to  elucidate  this  problem,  simply  because 
the  natural  constitution  or  existence  of  the  crea- 
ture is  involved  or  presupposed  in  his  creation  ; 
and  to  deduce  the  latter  from  the  former  conse- 
quently would  be  to  deduce  the  parent  from  the 
child,  or  the  heart  and  lungs  from  the  circula- 
tion. The  only  way  to  solve  the  problem  is  to 
leave  off  looking  at  the  mere  identity  of  the 
creature  as  naturally  posited,  and  commence  re- 
garding his  spiritual  individuality  which  alone 
announces  the  creative  presence  and  power  within 
him. 


fatal  to  Creation.  385 

This  natural  identity  of  the  creature  is  doubt- 
less all  important  to  the  interests  of  his  subse- 
quent spiritual  evolution;  and  in  that  point  of 
view  of  course  it  cannot  be  too  sedulously  vin- 
dicated. Indeed  it  is  my  express  aim  to  show 
that  God  cannot  create  things,  or  give  them 
spiritual  individuality,  save  in  so  far  forth  as  He 
first  forms  them  or  gives  them  natural  identity. 
Nevertheless,  indeed  all  the  more,  these  interests 
are  not  to  be  confounded :  the  strictly  hierarchi- 
cal relation  of  servant  and  master,  of  base  and 
building,  of  mould  and  form,  invariably  obtain- 
ing between  them.  To  create  a  thing,  as  we 
have  already  said,  is  to  give  it  inward  or  spirit- 
ual being ;  but  as  nothing  inwardly  is  which 
does  not  also  outwardly  exist  or  go  forth  in  ap- 
propriate form,  so  we  are  necessarily  led  to  insist 
that  creation  regarded  as  an  objective  work  of 
God  involves  in  order  to  its  own  truth  a  subjec- 
tive sphere  of  making  or  formation  on  the  part 
of  the  creature.  If  it  were  not  so,  the  creature 
must  inevitably  fail  of  that  projection  from  his 
creative  source  which  constitutes  the  actuality 
of  the  creative  work.  God  himself  who  is 
infinite  love  and  wisdom,  constitutes  the  be- 
ing of  the  creature,  or  spiritually  creates  him : 
if  therefore  the  creature  were  not  formally  dif- 
ferenced from  God,  or  finited  to  his  own  con- 
sciousness, he  would  not  exist  even  phenome- 
nally, and  so  far  from  ever  coming  to  spiritual 
life,  would  forever  lack  even  natural  existence. 
To  say  all  in  a  word,  God's  true  creature  is  spirit- 
ual like  God  himself:  but  unless  he  be  consciously 
25 


3^6  Nature  necessary  to  posit 

separated  from  God,  /.  e.  forever  identified  to 
his  own  perception,  irreparable  damage  and 
confusion  must  ensue  in  the  infinite  becoming 
finite,  and  the  finite  infinite. 

Now  I  shall  show  by  and  by  that  it  is  Nature 
which  alone  fulfils  this  formative  function.  She 
it  is  that  posits  the  creature  to  his  own  percep- 
tion. She  fixes  him,  finites  him,  or  gives  him 
indestructible  identity  to  his  own  consciousness, 
so  forever  discriminating  him  from  the  infinite. 
Unless  the  spiritual  creation  were  naturally  or- 
ganized, it  could  never  get  conscious  embodi- 
ment or  existence  ;  the  spiritual  creature  remain- 
ing in  that  case  hopelessly  destitute  of  that 
needful  projection  from  the  creator  which  makes 
self-consciousness  possible  to  him  and  so  avouches 
the  reality  of  his  creation.  For  the  existence  of 
the  creature  is  quite  as  necessary  to  the  reality 
of  creation  as  that  of  the  creator  is;  and  if 
therefore  the  former  do  not  present  himself  in  a 
form  quite  as  validly  his  own,  as  that  of  the 
creator  is  validly  His  own,  the  problem  is  in- 
stantly vacated  of  all  its  pith ;  that  is  to  say, 
creation  confesses  itself  a  sheer  imposture,  and 
slinks  off  at  once  into  a  despicable  cowardly 
Pantheism. 

Kant  had  no  perception  of  this  needful  impli- 
cation of  natural  existence  in  spiritual,  and  was 
consequently  destitute  of  any  commanding  doc- 
trine of  nature.  His  doctrine  of  Nature  as  we 
have  seen  was  a  mere  shameless  pilfering  of  the 
wardrobe  of  science  in  the  interest  of  a  tatter- 
demalion Philosophy.     The  man  of  science  re- 


the  Creature^  or  give  him  Identity.       387 

pudiates  Kant  consequently  quite  as  heartily  as 
the  philosopher  does.  For  in  order  to  deprive 
Philosophy  of  a  rational  basis  and  render  it  im- 
possible, Kant,  who  saw  no  difference  in  the  sub- 
ject matter  of  the  two  pursuits,  was  obliged  to 
postulate  the  imbecility  of  science  as  well.  In- 
stead of  his  ever  suspecting  even  for  a  moment 
the  pure  subordination  of  science  to  Philosophy, 
and  manfully  acquiescing  therefore  in  her  pro- 
visional demonstration  of  the  strict  rationality 
of  all  existence,  or  its  relativity  to  the  human 
mind,  his  Critique  of  the  Pure  Reason  is  built 
upon  the  frankest  possible  assumption  of  the 
absoluteness  of  science.  That  is  to  say,  he 
makes  the  understanding  competent  not  merely 
to  its  own  constitutional  function,  which  is  all 
simply  to  furnish  the  ratio  or  order  which  un- 
derlies all  the  data  of  sense,  but  also  to  the 
grandly  creative  office  of  assigning  its  own 
powers,  defining  its  own  empire,  propounding 
its  own  laws,  in  short  of  bluffly  saying  d  priori 
what  it  is  totally  incapable  even  of  imagining 
save  a  posteriori.  Kant  fancied  that  he  kept 
himself  within  the  limits  of  experience,  when 
discriminating  between  the  formal  and  the  ma- 
terial elements  of  knowledge.  But  not  to  in- 
sist (upon  what  nevertheless  is  conclusive  on  the 
subject)  that  our  empirical  knowledge  can  with 
no  propriety  of  speech  be  made  to  include  facts 
of  life  or  consciousness,  being  confined  wholly  to 
facts  of  sense  or  memory  :  I  have  already  abun- 
dantly shown  that  what  Kant  distinguishes  as 
the   formal   or  subjective,   and   the   material   or 


388  Important  distin^ion  between 

objective,  elements  of  knowledge,  are  totally  in- 
distinguishable in  consciousness  or  life,  and  yield 
themselves  up  only  to  a  post-mortem  analysis,  /'.  e. 
in  unconsciousness  or  death.  Never  was  a  more 
subtle  and  flagrant  case  exhibited  accordingly 
in  the  whole  history  of  human  thought,  of  the 
merest  naturalism  exalting  itself  into  the  highest 
places  of  Philosophy :  of  the  conceited  prag- 
matical little  creature  aping  the  prerogative  of 
his  great  creator,  and  in  fact  practically  shoving 
the  latter  from  his  stool. 

But  after  all  we  must  be  just  to  Kant  individ- 
ually. The  sensuous  prejudice  which  deflected 
his  judgment  on  all  this  subject  he  shares  with 
almost  all  the  learned.  Almost  nowhere  as  yet 
among  the  learned,  so  far  as  I  can  discover,  is  the 
distinction  recognized  between  identity  and  indi- 
viduality, between  community  and  society,  be- 
tween our  conscious  existence  and  our  uncon- 
scious being.  The  French  asserters  of  a  spiritual 
Philosophy,  Maine  de  Biran,  Theodore  Jouffroy, 
Cousin,  Emile  Saisset,  Paul  Janet,  and  others, 
are  struggling  manfully  towards  a  purely  spirit- 
ual doctrine  of  life,  inasmuch  as  they  are  intent 
upon  wresting  the  moral  instinct  from  the  uses 
of  a  purblind  materialism.  Doubtless  moral 
existence  is  the  indispensable  basis  of  spiritual 
life,  and  hence  in  maintaining  the  former  inter- 
est intact,  you  essentially  promote  the  latter. 
But  the  service  is  indirect,  and  no  way  justifies 
these  generous  disciples  in  pronouncing  Philoso- 
phy herself  wide  awake.  On  the  contrary  their 
own  persistent  identification  of  the  spiritual  with 


Identity  and  Individuality.  389 

the  moral  element  in  life,  or  what  is  the  same  thing, 
the  excessive  strain  they  feel  themselves  obliged 
to  put  upon  the  Finite  in  order  to  inflate  it  to 
the  dimensions  of  the  Infinite,  proves  that  she 
is  at  best  but  half-awake,  and  instead  of  truly 
mediating  between  her  principals,  is  very  often 
found  doing  little  better  than  laboriously  bump 
their  astonished  and  unwilling  heads  together. 

What  Philosophy  craves  for  her  final  redinte- 
gration, is  this  complete  intellectual  discrimina- 
tion on  our  part  of  base  from  building,  of  our 
moral  from  our  spiritual  parts.  Nothing  but 
our  habitual  identification  of  these  most  dis- 
tinct interests,  is  required  to  explain  the  persis- 
tent degradation  of  our  intellectual  life.  The 
cellar  of  our  intellectual  structure  is  kept  so 
continuous  with  its  drawing-room  and  bed-room 
floors  —  there  is  so  little  separation  or  even 
effort  at  separation  between  them  —  that  it  is 
no  wonder  that  the  effluvia  of  decayed  vegeta- 
tion and  animal  disorganization  pervade  the 
house,  or  that  vermin  and  dampness  chase  us  up 
to  our  very  garrets.  How  can  the  case  be  other- 
wise ?  If  I  am  basely  content  with  my  physical 
constitution  merely,  or  what  allies  me  in  nature 
with  animal  and  plant:  if  I  am  content  even  with 
my  moral  constitution  alone,  or  what  allies  me  nat- 
urally with  my  fellow-man,  and  feel  no  aspiration 
towards  that  interior  or  spiritual  individuality 
which  alone  allies  me  directly  with  God  :  the 
higher  parts  of  my  mind,  being  void  of  their 
proper  substance,  of  their  true  Divine  inhabita- 
tion,  must  inevitably  expand  to  every  baleful 


390  Philosophy  must  accept 

exhalation  from  below:  i.e.  reflect  and  reproduce 
all  the  littleness,  all  the  malignity  and  unclean- 
ness,  which  inhere  both  in  my  absolute  native 
penury,  and  my  comparative  lack  of  personal 
culture  or  refinement. 

In  other  words,  what  Philosophy  demands  in 
order  to  her  thorough  extrication  from  the  falla- 
cies both  of  sense  and  reason,  is  the  guiding 
light  of  Revelation,  Our  present  so-called  Phi- 
losophy has  hitherto  slighted  this  light  in  defer- 
ence to  science,  or  with  a  view  to  exalt  the  lower 
and  more  fickle  authority  of  reason.  Of  set 
purpose  indeed  she  allows  Revelation,  so  full  of 
the  profoundest  intellectual  wealth,  a  purely  re- 
ligious significance,  a  merely  tributary  relation 
to  natural  theology,  so  exposing  it  to  be  tram- 
pled under  the  clownish  and  conceited  hoofs  of 
science  :  and  she  salves  the  wounds  of  the 
meek-eyed  sufferer  with  a  shrug  at  best  of  the 
most  supercilious  compassion.  In  short  the 
fault  of  Philosophy  is  a  defective  self-conscious- 
ness, or  so  low  a  conception  of  her  great  office 
as  leads  her  not  to  coordinate  religion  and  sci- 
ence, not  to  harmonize  the  spiritual  and  moral 
life  of  man,  but  to  give  the  latter  and  lower 
interest  absolute  priority  of  the  higher ;  both 
Kant  and  Sir  William  Hamilton  for  example 
accepting  the  scientific  induction  of  life  as  final, 
and  relegating  Philosophy  consequently  in  any 
real  sense  of  the  word  into  an  idle  chase  of 
shadows.  Philosophy  must  at  once  withdraw 
from  this  unworthy  position,  or  else  consent  to 
fill  the  grave  which  Kant  has  dug  for  her,  and 


the  Guidance  of  Revelation.  391 

out  of  which  Sir  William  with  boyish  audacity 
declares  she  is  entitled  to  no  honor. 

Religion  and  science  are  harmonized  in  Phi- 
losophy ;  but  for  that  very  reason  they  are  never 
to  be  confounded.  Moral  existence  at  its  high- 
est is  but  the  matrix  of  spiritual,  and  has  no 
more  pretension  to  be  confounded  with  it,  than 
the  steward  of  a  great  house  has  to  be  confound- 
ed with  its  lord.  There  can  be  no  objection  to 
your  doing  the  amplest  justice  to  the  steward,  to 
your  duly  admiring  his  honest  function,  and 
estimating  if  you  have  the  requisite  information 
his  assured  and  contingent  emoluments.  But 
do  not  forget  that  he  is  only  a  steward  and 
shines  with  a  reflected  lustre.  So  is  it  with 
morality.  It  unquestionably  lifts  us  out  of 
animal  conditions  or  separates  us  toto  ccelo  from 
all  that  is  not  man ;  it  constitutes  us  rational 
beings,  having  a  power  of  control  over  our 
natural  appetites  and  passions,  and  so  insures 
us  the  supremacy  of  nature.  Celebrate  this 
great  service  as  you  will,  only  do  not  conceal 
its  intrinsic  subordination  to  spiritual  ends.  De- 
monstrate as  vividly  as  you  please  the  superior 
dignity  of  man  to  all  the  tribes  of  animated  na- 
ture, in  his  possessing  moral  consciousness  or  a 
power  of  voluntary  control  over  his  merely 
animal  contents.  But  do  not  forget  for  a  mo- 
ment that  this  shining  endowment  of  the  hu- 
man form,  deifying  man  as  it  does  to  the  merely 
scientific  eye,  is  yet  by  no  means  a  finality  or  its 
own  end :  that  it  is  itself  in  its  turn  but  the 
humble  earth  of  a  far  sublimer  heaven,  which 


392  Uncontrolled  by  Philosophy 

is  that  of  man's  spiritual  destiny,  the  home  of 
his  immortal  conjunction  with  God.  It  exists 
in  fact  only  by  the  uses  it  promotes  to  this  su- 
perior life.  Our  whole  natural  history  is  but  a 
preparation  for  this  great  destiny.  We  come 
into  nature  with  a  superstitious  belief  in  her 
absoluteness  as  affirmed  by  sense.  Slowly  the 
scientific  reason  relieves  us  of  this  tyranny.  It 
gradually  empties  nature  of  substance  in  herself, 
and  so  prepares  us  for  the  mission  of  Philosophy 
which  bids  us  recognize  the  end  of  all  created 
things  in  man  :  not  of  course  in  man  as  still 
involved  in  nature,  but  as  spiritually  emancipa- 
ted from  her  by  a  signal  Divine  work  accom-^ 
plished  within  her  actual  limits. 

Uncontrolled  by  Philosophy  science  is  of  ne- 
cessity atheistic  ;  because  so  long  as  we  consider 
morality  absolute,  or  regard  it  as  the  highest 
type  of  life,  we  necessarily  identify  its  subject 
with  God,  and  vacate  at  last  all  valid  ground  of 
discrimination  between  creature  and  creator.  If 
morality  constitute  the  Divine  style  of  life,  it 
becomes  evident  at  once  that  the  difference  be- 
tween God  and  man  is  not  one  of  kind  but  only 
of  degree ;  is  not  the  difference  in  other  words 
of  creator  and  creature,  but  of  two  equal  sub- 
jects of  the  same  law  (as  Dr.  Bushnell  delights 
to  make  it  appear)  one  of  whom  may  be 
much  more  perfect  in  his  literal  obedience,  but 
cannot  have  the  least  pretension  to  prejudice  the 
others  spiritual  equality  with  him.  And  a 
sensuous  Faith,  a  faith  which  exalts  the  crea- 
ture to  the  creator,  or  lowers  the  creator  to  the 


Science  is   necessarily  Jtheislic.  393 

creature,  by  making  the  difference  between  them 
to  be  one  of  degree  and  not  of  kind,  begets  an 
atheistic  Science,  and  a  pantheistic  Logic,  Pan- 
theism In  the  sphere  of  thought,  the  intellectual 
sphere,  is  but  the  reverberation  of  a  practical 
Atheism  in  the  sphere  of  observation,  the  scien- 
tific sphere:  which  itself  betrays  the  predomi- 
nance of  sense  in  the  sphere  of  life  or  experience. 
The  human  mind  can  no  more  exist  without 
faith,  than  the  body  without  a  heart.  Faith  is 
indeed  the  heart  of  the  mind,  from  which  its 
life-blood  (knowledge)  primarily  flows.  But  as 
sense  which  is  the  outward  rind  or  body  of  the 
mind,  its  legs  and  arms,  its  multiform  organs  and 
enveloping  cuticle,  degrades  whatsoever  is  spirit- 
ual in  knowledge  to  what  is  carnal,  it  conse- 
quently returns  to  Faith  no  longer  the  ruddy  life- 
giving  tide  it  receives  from  her,  but  a  blackened 
desecrated  stream  full  of  decay  and  death.  Faith 
of  course  in  her  turn  repugns  the  odious  nutri- 
ment, and  hands  it  over  to  reason,  which  is  the 
lungs  of  the  mind,  for  instant  chastisement  and 
defecation.  But  just  as  the  lungs,  when  im- 
mersed In  an  atmosphere  of  their  own  making, 
no  longer  purify  but  only  corrupt  the  blood,  so 
reason  unillumined  by  light  from  heaven,  or  shut 
up  to  her  own  earth  which  is  sense,  does  not  viv- 
ify but  only  inflates  knowledge ;  does  not  sift 
what  Is  mere  dead  fact  within  It  from  what  is 
living  truth,  what  Is  material  from  what  Is  spir- 
itual :  but  only  and  at  best  modifies  thought 
from  an  atheistic  to  a  Pantheistic  form :  in  place 
of  saying  there  is  no  God,  says  that  all  Is  God  : 


394  ^^^  Logic  Pantheistic. 

which  is  practically  a  worse  thing,  since  a  frank, 
denial  of  the  truth  is  much  more  hopeful  than 
its  specious  falsification. 

To  sum  up:  wherever  science  and  not  life  ex- 
clusively constitutes  the  subject-matter  of  Philos- 
ophy, as  it  does  in  Kant  and  all  later  German 
speculation  inspired  by  Kant,  the  result  to  Phi- 
losophy herself  is  not  an  accomplished  creation, 
or  life  of  man  on  earth,  in  which  infinite  and 
finite  harmoniously  coexist  and  reciprocally  em- 
brace each  other ;  but  a  chaotic  muddle  and 
hopeless  sophistication  of  the  two  which  baffle 
discrimination  and  helplessly  disorganize  intelli- 
gence. In  this  state  of  things  what  needs  to  be 
done  in  order  to  disengage  Philosophy  and  put 
her  on  her  feet,  is  to  show  that  the  true  life  of 
man,  what  we  properly  term  his  creation,  is 
primarily  a  spiritual  process,  exacting  no  doubt 
his  moral  experience  as  the  needful  theatre  of  its 
own  manifestation,  but  for  that  very  reason  refus- 
ing to  be  individualized  by  it  any  more  than  the 
soul  is  individualized  by  the  body,  or  the  actor 
by  the  dress  in  which  he  temporarily  plays  his 
part. 


i 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

The  difference  between  a  spurious  and  a  true 
Philosophy  —  /.  e.  between  a  doctrine  of  Nature 
which  makes  Nature  herself  to  be  God's  true 
creature,  and  one  which  makes  her  purely  inci- 
dental to  the  Divine  creation  —  becomes  strik- 
ingly plain  when  you  turn  from  Kant  and  con- 
front Swedenborg.  In  Kant's  hands  Existence 
is  declared  to  be  unreal  because  it  is  finite  and 
phenomenal,  or  without  infinitude  and  absolute- 
ness in-itself.  On  the  other  hand  to  Swedenborg 
these  very  disqualifications  are  the  sure  vouchers 
of  its  reality  ;  since  the  infinitude  and  absolute- 
ness of  a  created  thing  must  necessarily  attach 
to  the  thing  not  in-itself,  but  in  its  creator.  To 
Kant  accordingly  Nature  is  a  mere  intellectual 
mirage,  incapable  of  basing  any  rational  super- 
structure ;  while  to  Swedenborg  it  is  a  solid 
earth  of  knowledge  undecaying  as  the  Divine 
perfection,  and  capable  therefore  of  affording  a 
most  sure  warrant  to  any  amount  of  rational  be- 
lief and  expectation ;  a  most  steadfast  base  to 
any  height  or  depth  or  breadth  of  spiritual  and 
celestial  observation. 

Swedenborg's  scheme  of  creative  order  is 
fashioned  exclusively  upon  the  truth  of  God's 
proper   infinitude   or  perfection,  which   renders 


39^  God  is  not  voluntarily 

Him  not  voluntarily  but  spontaneously  or  es- 
sentially creative  :  creative  not  by  any  mere  act 
of  power  but  in  Himself,  or  by  the  whole  neces- 
sity of  His  being.  His  love  is  so  truly  infinite, 
as  being  utterly  unlimited  by  self-love,  that  His 
creation  amounts  to  an  actual  process  of  self- 
alienation,  if  I  may  bt  allowed  the  phrase  ;  so 
that  in  giving  us  being  He  necessarily  gives 
Himself  to  us  in  the  plenitude  of  His  goodness 
truth  and  power.  In  a  word  according  to  Swe- 
denborg  God  creates  us  or  gives  us  being  only 
by  thoroughly  incarnating  Himself  in  our  na- 
ture ;  but  inasmuch  as  this  descent  of  the  crea- 
tor to  creaturely  limitations  incidentally  involves 
of  course,  on  the  part  of  the  creature,  the  strictest 
inversion  of  the  creative  perfection,  or  a  spirit  of 
the  utmost  pride  rapacity  and  tyranny,  so  it  must 
itself  necessarily  provoke  a  corresponding  ascend- 
ing or  redemptive  movement  on  God's  part,  giv- 
ing us  spiritual  extrication  from  this  infirmity. 
Otherwise  creation  would  remain  utterly  inoper- 
ative save  in  a  downward  direction.  If  God 
should  simply  give  me  natural  substance  or 
identity  without  at  the  same  time  insuring  me 
spiritual  form  or  individuality,  I  should  remain 
like  the  animal  forever  unconjoined  with  Him 
spiritually,  and  immersed  in  sensual  delights. 
Let  us  clearly  understand  then  that  the  Divine 
operation  in  creation  is  made  up  of  two  move- 
ments: one  strictly  objective  or  creative,  which  is 
a  movement  of  humiliation  consisting  in  giving 
us  natural  being  or  identity  ;  the  other  strictly 
subjective  and  redemptive,  which  is  a  movement 


but  spontaneously  Creative.  397 

of  glorification  consisting  in  giving  us  the  am- 
plest individual  or  spiritual  expansion  out  of  that 
base  root.  The  prior  movement  • —  the  descend- 
ing, statical,  and  properly  creative  one  —  gives 
us  natural  selfhood  or  consciousness,  a  con- 
sciousness of  separation  from  God,  of  a  power 
inhering  in  ourselves  and  independent  therefore 
of  Him.  The  posterior  movement  —  the  as- 
cending, dynamical,  and  properly  redemptive  one 
—  gives  us  spiritual  consciousness,  a  conscious- 
ness of  union  with  God,  and  makes  us  abhor 
and  recoil  from  nothing  so  much  as  the  spiritual 
filth  of  all  sorts  —  the  exuberant  pride,  inhu- 
manity, and  concupiscence  —  which  lies  con- 
cealed in  every  motion  of  our  moral  power. 

Stated  in  more  general  terms,  Swedenborg's 
doctrine  practically  amounts  to  this  :  that  the 
creative  operation  in  humanity  is  under  a  certain 
necessity  imposed  by  its  own  perfection  to  put 
on  a  strictly  historic  guise ;  or  to  struggle  up 
from  a  natural  root,  through  a  rational  stem, 
into  a  consummate  spiritual  flower.  His  meth- 
od of  demonstration  may  be  formulated  in  three 
propositions  of  surpassing  philosophic  breadth, 
to  which  accordingly  I  invite  the  reader's  close 
attention,  namely:  1.  God's  perfection  is  such 
that  He  cannot  create  life,  but  only  communi- 
cate it;  2.  It  is  of  prime  necessity  therefore 
that  a  suitable  form  exist  prepared  to  receive 
such  communication  ;  3.  This  form,  thus  ne- 
cessary to  enracinate  creation  or  separate  be- 
tween creator  and  creature,  must  be  itself  nat- 
ural. 


39^  God  cannot  create  Life 

The  general  import  of  these  three  propositions 
makes  it  a  fundamental  exigency  of  the  crea- 
tive perfection  or  infinitude,  that  its  creature 
possess  conscious  or  phenomenal  existence,  in 
order  to  his  realizing  the  real  or  absolute  be- 
ing he  has  in  God.  In  other  words  he  must 
possess  natural  identity  allying  him  with  all 
other  existence,  before  he  can  realize  that  spir- 
itual diversity  or  individuality  which  alone  allies 
him  with  God. 

But  let  us  look  at  each  proposition  in  de- 
tail. 

I.  When  we  call  God  a  perfect  or  infinite 
being,  what  do  we  mean  ?  We  mean  that 
He  is  Life,  the  sole  life  of  the  universe,  life- 
in-Himself,  uncreated  life.  This  is  what  we 
mean  when  we  call  God  a  perfect  being,  or 
allege  His  eternity  and  infinity.  We  know 
that  our  own  life  is  derived ;  that  we  exist 
naturally  and  hence  consciously  only  because 
our  fathers  have  preceded  us.  But  God  has 
no  father,  being  self-existent  or  uncreated,  being 
in  short  Life  itself  It  is  His  express  perfec- 
tion or  infinitude  that  He  is  Life  itself,  there 
being  no  life  in  the  universal  orb  which  does 
not  reflect  His  mediate  or  immediate  pres- 
ence. 

Now  it  is  just  this  perfection  of  God  which, 
according  to  Swedenborg,  shapes  creation,  or 
makes  it  precisely  what  it  is  to  the  experience 
of  the  creature,  namely :  not  a  mere  display  of 
brute  omnipotence  conditioned  in  space  and 
time,  but  a  process  of  rational  growth  or  forma- 


hut  only  communicate  it.  399 

tion  involving  all  space  and  all  time  within 
itself,  and  therefore  never  dominated  but  only- 
served  by  them.  For  this  perfection  of  God, 
this  fact  of  His  being  Life  itself,  makes  it 
impossible  that  He  should  create  life.  If  He 
should  create  life,  if  He  should  summon  into 
existence  a  being  who  should  be  not  merely 
a  form  or  subject  of  life,  but  life  itself,  then 
that  being  would  be  God  ;  and  creature  and 
creator  consequently  would  be  at  eternal  log- 
gerheads. God  cannot  ^reate  life  thereforej_ 
/,  since  this  would  be  contrary  to  His  essential 
[j  infinitude,  but  only  conimunicate~itr'  And  as 
God  himself  Is ~life',Torcommunicate  life  to  the 
creature  means  of  course  to  communicate  Him- 
self Thus  creation  consists  not  in  any  creation 
of  life,  which  is  absurd,  but  altogether  in  a  com- 
munication to  the  creature  of  that  life  which 
God  already  and  unchangeably  is  :  so  that  the 
creature  is  never  life  itself  even  within  his  own 
limits,  but  only  and  at  most  a  form  of  life,  a 
perfect  form  or  image  of  life,  a  perfect  organ  or 
subject  of  life,  into  which  the  Divine  Life  in- 
flows and  indwells  as  in  Himself,  communicat- 
ing His  eternal  power  and  beauty. 

H.  Such  being  the  law  of  the  creative  Per- 
fection, that  jt  communicate  life  in  place  of  cre- 
ating it^t  is  at  once  oFvious  thariHe  creature 
must  have  a  form  of  his  own,  must  possess  con- 
sciousness or  be  phenomenal  to  himself,  in  order 
not  to  be  swallowed  up  in  God.  If  the  thing 
created  should  be  without  the  form  or  appear- 
ance of  being  to  itself;   if  it  had  no  proper  con- 


400        Before  Life  can  be  cotnmunicated 

sciousness,  no  indestructible  identity  to  its  own 
perception,  how  could  it  possibly  be  discriminat- 
ed or  individualized  from  God  when  animated 
by  Him  '?  Evidently  the  fundamental  exigency 
of  any  creajlon  we  can  recognize_js^jKatth^ 
creature  possess  selfhood  or  consciousTreedom 
and  rationality  :  that  he  have  at  all  events  an 
apparent  lite  m  himself,  in  order  to_Jiis  being 
projected  from  God,  and  so  prepared  for  that 
subsequent  Divine  influx  'and  jjihabitatio_n  in 
which  alone^HiT  spiritual  individuality,  or  im- 
mortaPbelng,  consists.  It  may  be  in  itself  the 
merest  semblance  of  life  ;  it  may  be,  as  inwardly 
or  spiritually  beheld,  full  of  death  in  fact :  but 
to  him  the  conscious  subject  it  must  appear  the 
most  absolute  of  realities,  under  pain  of  inval- 
idating every  subsequent  exhibition  of  the  crea- 
tive energy  towards  him. 

Let  us  make  sure  that  we  clearly  apprehend 
this  point,  for  it  makes  all  the  difference  between 
heavenly  truth  and  infernal  error. 

I  say  that  the  inexorable  prerequisite  of  God's 
spiritual  end  in  creation  is,  that  the  creature  get 
extrication  from  the  creator ;  become  posited  to 
his  own  consciousness  as  a  free  being ;  attain  in 
short  to  an  every  way  veracious  selfhood.  If 
the  creature  should  not  consciously  exist ;  if  he 
should  not  possess  finite  form  or  selfhood,  he 
would  obviously  be  destitute  of  identity,  could 
not  be  said  to  be,  and  neither  creation  nor  any- 
thing else  could  be  predicated  of  him.  To 
create  means  to  give  being  or  communicate  life 
to  what  assuredly  is  not  oneself;  and  if  this  be 


a  basis  of  communication  must  exist.     401 

so  the  creator  is  bound  in  order  to  impart  His 
own  being  or  communicate  Himself  to  the  crea- 
ture, above  all  things  else  to  posit  the  creature, 
or  afford  him  some  adequate  and  veracious 
ground  of  self-consciousness.  Thus  selfhood, 
which  is  one's  ability  to  feel  one's  life  as  one's 
own  and  not  as  another's  in  him,  is  the  inex- 
pugnable necessity  of  creation  ;  inasmuch  as 
without  it  there  can  be  no  conceivable  commu- 
nication of  life  on  the  part  of  the  creator,  hence 
no  creation.  The  creature  must  be  absolutely 
and  unchangeably  himself,  must  possess  identity, 
or  real  and  conscious  distinction  from  his  crea- 
tor :  otherwise  creation  in  any  honest  sense  of 
that  word  must  confess  itself  an  unqualified 
sham,  and  tumble  off  into  the  bottomless  abyss 
of  Pantheism. 

If  indeed  the  orthodox  and  vulgar  conception 
of  creation  were  true,  which  makes  it  a  mere 
impromptu  spurt  of  the  Divine  power,  as  essen- 
tially wanton  or  capricious  as  that  whereby  an 
idle  horseman  with  a  stroke  of  his  whip  lays 
low  the  head  of  an  aspiring  thistle,  then  we 
might  conceive  otherwise.  Then  we  might  al- 
low disorder  to  constitute  the  true  order  of  crea- 
tion, without  any  shock  to  our  intelligence,  sim- 
ply because  we  could  not  possibly  have  in  that 
case  any  intelligence  to  be  shocked  or  unshocked; 
for  intelligence  means  exclusively  the  perception 
of  a  Divine  order  in  creation.  But  the  ortho- 
dox conception  as  we  have  seen  is  irredeemably 
irrational  or  vicious,  because  reason  insists  that  it 

does  not  fall  within   the  scope  even  of  Divine 
26 


40 2  Creation  in  order  to  be  Real 

power  to  create  life  but  only  to  communicate  it. 
Life  cannot  be  created  because  God  himself  is 
life  :  the  sole,  the  total,  the  unchangeable  life  of 
all  things  that  have  life  ;  so  that  for  Him  to  cre- 
ate life  would  be  to  create  Himself,  who  yet  is 
essentially  uncreated.  And  it  must  be  commu- 
nicated to  the  creature,  so  as  to  be  in  him  as  his 
own,  before  it  can  be  enjoyed  by  him.  Because 
unless  it  were  so  communicated  :  /.  e.  made  bv 
the  Divine  bounty  a  common  possession  between 
Him  and  His  creature :  the  latter  must  utterly 
fail  to  image  his  creative  source,  must  remain  in 
fact  unconscious,  insensate,  inanimate,  without 
any  sign  of  being.  The  very  marrow  of  the 
Divine  perfection  lies  in  this  ;  that  He  is  life  in 
Himself:  and  one  instantly  perceives  therefore 
that  an  alleged  creature  of  God  who  should  not 
at  least  appear  to  have  life  in  himself  as  well, 
feeling  it  to  be  his  own  and  not  another's  in  him, 
would  manifestly  be  no  image  of  God,  and  con- 
sequently confess  himself  no  creature.  If  the 
creature  were  destitute  of  selfhood  or  identity; 
if  to  his  own  perception  at  least  he  did  not  seem 
to  be  quite  naturally,  i.  e.  independently  of  any- 
thing beyond  his  own  nature ;  he  would  of 
course  remain  purely  passive  or  inert  to  the 
Divine  communication,  and  confess  himself  for- 
ever dead  to  the  faintest  breath  of  life. 

By  the  sheer  necessity  of  the  case,  then,  crea- 
tion involves  in  order  to  its  own  functioning  a 
distinctively  formative  sphere  of  experience  on 
the  part  of  the  creature,  by  means  of  which  the 
creature  who  is  Divinely  vivified,  may  come  to 


exaffs  Selfhood  in  the  Creature :        403 

self-consciousness,  to  the  formal  recognition  of 
himself  as  so  vivified.  Let  us  rather  say  that 
the  creative  nisus  totally  merges  in  this  prelimi- 
nary process  of  formation,  so  that  God  actually 
creates  or  gives  being  to  things  only  in  so  far  as 
He  first  gives  them  subjective  form. 

Such  are  the  implied  philosophic  contents  of 
our  first  two  Propositions.  I  know  very  well 
how  superfluous  they  will  seem  to  the  ordinary 
religious  apprehension.  The  orthodox  religion- 
ist has  not  the  least  idea  of  nature  as  a  needful 
involution  of  God's  spiritual  operation  in  crea- 
tion ;  that  is,  he  has  no  idea  of  our  natural  cre- 
ation in  the  Divine  image  being  requisite  to 
base  our  subsequent  spiritual  and  unimpeded 
conjunction  with  Him.  He  conceives  that  cre- 
ation was  a  purely  superficial  display  of  the  Di- 
vine power,  involving  no  rational  method  or 
order,  implying  no  subjective  or  conscious  dis- 
crimination of  creature  from  creator,  inferring 
in  fact  no  interior  physiology  of  any  sort,  but 
being  a  mere  brute  effect  of  lawless,  irrational, 
unprincipled,  irresistible  might.  Orthodoxy,  or 
Natural  Religion,  conceives  without  a  misgiv- 
ing that  space  and  time  are  the  real  or  infinite 
substances  of  the  universe;  that  they  are  modes 
of  God's  being,  conditions  of  His  consciousness, 
needful  elements  of  His  existence,  as  of  ours:  thus 
that  there  were  aboriginally  to  His  perception 
an  infinite  space  where  and  an  eternal  time  when 
creation  was  not :  /.  e.  where  and  when  He  dwelt 
in  awful  inactivity.  And  it  regards  creation 
itself  consequently,  not  as  the  munificent  inves- 


404        ^nd  hence  claims  to  he  a  purely 

titure  it  really  is,  on  God's  part,  of  His  depend- 
ent creature  with  His  own  infinite  and  eternal 
power  and  blessedness,  but  as  the  mere  imple- 
tion  of  these  idle  gaping  and  loathsome  wilder- 
nesses of  space  and  time  with  their  present  fixed 
and  movable  contents,  their  existing  mineral 
vegetable  and  animal  furniture.  Its  conception 
is  that  what  God  creates  or  gives  being  to  must 
be  intrinsically  void  not  only  of  being  but  of 
seeming;  not  only  of  substance  but  of  form  ; 
not  only  of  objective  reality  but  of  subjective 
phenomenality :  so  that  all  pretence  to  separate 
the  creature  from  the  creator  on  the  basis  of  a 
veracious  natural  selfhood  becomes  absurd,  and 
his  subsequent  rise  into  moral,  much  more  into 
spiritual,  life  or  consciousness,  confesses  itself 
simply  inconceivable  and  incredible. 

Thus  the  received  orthodox  idea  is  that  cre- 
ation is  a  purely  physical  exploit  of  God  where- 
by He  makes  all  things  out  of  absolutely  no 
substance  whatever  real  or  fallacious  :  that  is, 
out  of  pure  nothing :  by  a  simple  fiat  of  arbi- 
trary volition ;  and  hence  logically  it  turns  the 
creature  from  a  spiritual  being  capable  of  com- 
munion with  his  maker,  capable  of  freely  reflect- 
ing or  reproducing  in  himself  all  Divine  perfec- 
tion, into  a  graceless  stock  or  stone  without 
self-consciousness  or  visibility  to  others,  without 
spirituality  or  corporeity,  in  short  without  one 
solitary  feature  of  resemblance  to  the  creator  to 
rescue  it  from  ghastly  idiocy  and  death. 

To  state  these  notions  is  to  refute  them. 
They  belong  obviously  to  the  childhood  of  the 


spiritual  operation  of  God.  405* 

mind,  the  period  of  its  subjection  to  the  teach- 
ings of  sense  (symbolically,  the  serpent).  Noth- 
ing does  not  and  cannot  exist.  There  never 
was  a  time  when  things  were  not,  nor  a  space 
where  they  were  not ;  because  things  exist  only 
to  a  rationally  and  sensibly  finited  intelligence  : 
time  and  space  being  the  mere  universals  of  such 
an  intelligence,  its  constitutional  implication  and 
attestation.  It  is  thus  supremely  childish  to 
cogitate  creation  as  an  incident  of  time  and 
space,  however  brief  or  however  protracted.  If 
you  allow  it  only  this  force  you  reduce  it  at 
once  to  actual  nullity,  or  leave  it  only  an  ideal 
truth,  by  making  it  a  mere  phenomenon  of  the 
human  mind.  Space  and  time  are  really  men- 
tal substances,  having  no  other  function  than  to 
compel  all  the  objects  of  Nature  and  all  the 
events  of  History  into  the  compass  of  the  hu- 
man form.  In  this  state  of  things  it  is  of  course 
preposterous  to  imagine  a  space  where  and  a 
time  when  creation  did  not  exist,  but  was  sum- 
marily mechanized  into  being.  Scepticism  is 
not  only  our  reasonable  service  here,  it  is  rigidly 
im.perative  upon  every  lover  of  truth.  Not 
scepticism  indeed,  but  the  frankest  possible  de- 
nial, is  properly  incumbent  upon  every  candid 
mind,  with  respect  to  these  mere  en  fan  tillages  of 
cosmological  inquiry.  The  interests  of  the 
most  sacred  verity  require  that  we  begin  at  last 
to  entertain  worthier  conceptions  of  the  creative 
power :  that  we  leave  off  looking  upon  creation 
as  a  momentary  exploit  of  the  Divine  volition, 
and  commence  regarding  it  as  an  infinite  and 


406  Orthodoxy  turns  Creation  into 

eternal  incarnation  of  the  Divine  Love  and  Wis- 
dom in  all  the  varied  forms  of  human  nature. 
The  Divine  power  is  primarily  spiritual,  and 
natural  only  by  derivation  from  that.  In  other 
words  man  is  the  sole  spiritual  creature  of  God, 
and  animal  vegetable  and  mineral  are  his  crea- 
tures only  by  virtue  of  their  necessary  implica- 
tion in  man.  Thus  space  and  time  far  from 
lying  outside  the  Divine  creation  and  furnishing 
its  theatre  as  we  suppose,  fall  most  strictly  within 
it,  being  only  two  most  coarse  or  universal  ex- 
pressions of  the  absolute  unity  in  variety,  and 
of  the  infinite  variety  in  unity,  which  severally 
animate  it,  and  keep  it  eternally  fresh  and  fra- 
grant. In  one  word  :  space  and  time  with  all  their 
contents  are  embraced  in  the  human  conscious- 
ness, and  have  no  other  function  than  to  afford 
a  finite  basis,  a  fixed  continent,  for  its  superb 
spiritual  evolution. 

Let  us  clearly  understand  then  that  creation 
of  necessity,  or  in  order  to  its  own  integrity  in- 
volves a  preliminary  sphere  of  formation  or  re- 
demption, and  that  all  our  orthodox  cosmologies 
are  unspeakably  puerile  in  a  philosophic  estima- 
tion, because  they  make  no  allowance  for  this 
necessity,  but  on  the  contrary  persist  in  regard- 
ing it  as  a  paltry  tour  de  force  on  God's  part,  a 
mere  wilful  and  extempore  proceeding,  without 
rational  gradation  or  order.  The  first  condition 
of  intellectual  progress  for  us  is  that  we  discard 
this  antiquated  travesty  of  the  truth,  and  com- 
mence conceiving  of  creation  as  the  giving  be- 
ing by  God  to  what  has  subjective  or  phenome- 


a  mere  physical  'Exploit  of  God.         407 

nal  consciousness,  to  what  necessarily  appears  to 
be  in  itself.  Nothing  does  not  exist,  since  all 
existence  is  made  up  of  persons  and  things ; 
and  to  say  that  God  gives  being  to  what  does 
not  even  to  its  own  apprehension  exist,  or  pos- 
sess at  the  very  least  a  fallacious  consciousness, 
is  to  leave  no  ground  of  discrimination  between 
creature  and  creator,  and  to  end  by  organizing 
a  nauseous  Pantheism.  Nothing  means  on  its 
face  as  in  its  bosom  no-thing,  non-existence.  It 
means  what  neither  is  nor  appears  to  be,  what 
has  neither  being  nor  the  semblance  of  being, 
neither  substance  nor  form,  neither  real  nor  con- 
scious existence.  All  finite  existence  is  of  two 
kinds  personal  and  real,  moral  and  physical. 
Whatsoever  transcends  both  of  these  categories 
is  spiritual  and  infinite;  whatsoever  falls  below 
them  is  not  to  be  conceived,  does  not  exist,  is 
no  thing  even.^  To  represent  the  Deity  accord- 
ingly as  creating  or  giving  being  to  this  pure 
nothingness,  as  imparting  Himself  to  this  abso- 
lute non-existence,  is  at  once  to  make  creation 
itself  devoid  of  actuality  by  depriving  it  of  con- 
sciousness.    Consciousness  as  all  experience  wit- 


'  The  word  nothing  means  things,  that  they  are  destitute 
the  logical  negation  of  identity,  not  merely  of  consciousness  but 
as  being  that  which  has  neither  of  visibility  to  others,  or  do  not 
inward  substance  nor  cutward  enjoy  even  an  apparent  exist- 
form,  neither  real  nor  phenome-  ence  :  and  hence  instead  of  be- 
nal  existence,  being  in  fact  the  ing  rightly  chargeable  with  good 
hopeless  prorogation  of  both,  and  evil,  are  void  of  all  con- 
To  say  then  that  God  creates  ceivable  selfhood  or  identity, 
all  things  out  of  nothing,  is  vir-  and  hence  out  of  all  possible 
tually  to  say  that  the  things  thus  relation  to  God  forever, 
alleged    to    be   created   are   not 


408  JVhereas  in  truth  Nature  is  but 

nesses  cannot  be  outwardly  imparted,  but  must 
in  all  cases  be  inwardly  begotten,  since  it  is  not 
a  simple  or  absolute  possession  of  its  subject, 
but  a  complex  or  relative  one,  being  an  invari- 
able term  of  relation  between  him  and  his  na- 
ture. Consciousness  always  means  the  marriage 
fusion  or  unity  of  a  common  nature  and  a  spe- 
cific subject  of  that  nature.  Accordingly  selfhood 
or  subjective  existence,  no  matter  how  fallacious  it 
be  when  regarded  objectively,  is  the  indispensable 
prerequisite  of  God's  creative  designs  ;  because 
the  creature's  identity,  or  conscious  separation 
from  the  creator,  by  which  the  truth  of  creation 
is  eternally  vitalized  —  without  which  indeed  it 
sinks  into  a  contemptible  farce  —  would  be  oth- 
erwise hopelessly  confiscated. 

I  have  now  said  all  that  seems  needed  at  pres- 
ent in  elucidation  of  our  First  and  Second  prop- 
ositions, which  together  imported  that  inasmuch 
as  creation  consists  not  in  the  creation  of  life  but 
only  in  the  communication  of  it  by  the  creator 
to  the  creature,  it  follows  that  the  latter  must 
exist  in  a  form  suitable  to  receive  such  commu- 
nication. 

III.  Let  us  next  examine  our  Third  proposi- 
tion which  runs  thus  :  "  The  only  form  suited  to 
give  creation  root  or  embodiment  is  of  necessity 
natural:"  being  in  fact  the  very  form  of  Nature. 
Why  should  the  created  form  be  of  necessity 
natural  ?  Why  must  it  needs  involve  the  rela- 
tion between  a  common  nature  and  an  individ- 
ual subject  of  that  nature  ?  Why  might  it  not 
be  a  purely  spiritual  form,  i.  e.  retain  the  indi- 


a  Mask  of  God's  spiritual  operation.     409 

vidual  element  and  exclude  the  communistic 
one  *?  I  shall  try  to  make  my  answer  full  and 
clear. 

In  the  first  place  let  me  remind  the  reader  of 
what  it  is  that  makes  any  form  necessary  to  the 
creature,  namely  :  the  interests  of  his  identity, 
which  require  his  absolute  formal  discrimination 
from  the  creator.  Creation  as  we  have  seen  is 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  communication  of 
life  on  the  part  of  the  creator  to  the  creature. 
But  manifestly  this  communication  could  never 
take  place  unless  some  basis  exist  adequate  to 
its  transaction;  that  is  to  say,  unless  some  quasi 
or  phenomenal  life  in  himself  be  allowed  the 
creature,  in  order  to  serve  as  the  medium  of  the 
creative  communication.  Spiritually  viewed 
creation  means  the  eternal  conjunction  of  crea- 
tor and  creature  ;  but  what  sort  of  conjunction 
would  this  be,  if  the  creature  were  without  any 
identity,  forever  discriminating  him  to  his  own 
perception  from  the  creator"?  Evidently  no  con- 
junction at  all,  and  consequently  no  creation. 
The  whole  stress  accordingly  of  the  creative 
Providence  is  exerted  to  secure  a  permanent 
and  ample  base  for  creation,  in  endowing  the 
creature  with  selfhood  or  subjective  constitution. 
The  interests  of  the  creature's  identity  are  ne- 
cessarily the  prime  care  of  the  creative  Love,  its 
whole  spiritual  activity  remaining  contingent 
upon  their  being  indestructibly  guaranteed.  In 
other  words  selfhood  or  consciousness  in  the 
creature  is  the  altogether  inevitable  postulate 
of    the  Divine   power  in  creation  :    everything 


410  The  Creature's  Identity  the  first 

being  possible  to  it  if  that  postulate  be  granted  : 
nothing  whatever  if  it  be  denied.  It  is  not  by 
any  means  the  consummate  flower  and  fruit  of 
creation ;  but  only  that  rude  incidental  husk 
which  gives  bodily  nourishment  to  the  flower 
and  fruit  according  to  the  demands  of  their  in- 
ward nature :  only  that  abysmal  foundation  in 
short  or  indispensable  subterranean  root,  without 
which  creation,  spiritually  regarded,  could  never 
either  flourish  or  fructify.  For  it  is  obvious  to 
a  glance  that  if  life  were  conferred  upon  the 
creature  immediately  by  God ;  if  it  were  con- 
veyed to  him  by  some  direct  exhibition  of  the 
Divine  power,  and  without  any  constitutional 
reaction  on  his  part ;  it  would  be  nothing  short 
of  an  imposition.  And  the  creature  in  that  case 
would  be  so  far  from  any  capacity  to  appropri- 
ate it,  or  feel  it  to  be  his  own,  that  he  would 
not  be  able  even  to  perceive  it.  He  would  be 
less  in  sympathy  with  it  spiritually  than  the 
stone  is  in  sympathy  with  the  genius  of  Shak- 
speare. 

The  reader  perceives  clearly  by  this  time,  that 
what  is  exacted  in  the  creature  first  of  all  is  a 
form  of  existence  which  shall  above  all  things 
unmistakably  identify  him,  or  eternally  separate 
him  to  his  own  consciousness  from  God  :  since 
that  very  communication  of  life  to  him  which 
alone,  spiritually  speaking,  constitutes  his  crea- 
tion, is  absolutely  contingent  upon  such  identifi- 
cation and  perishes  without  it. 

But  now  if  the  reader  see  thus  much  very 
clearly,   he   will   be   ready  to  see  still   further : 


Care  of  the  creative  Love.  41 1 

that  if  the  interests  of  the  spiritual  creation  re- 
quire that  the  creature  be  at  all  discriminated  in 
se  from  the  creator,  they  require  that  he  be  so 
discriminated  to  the  utmost  possible  extent,  or 
to  the  point  of  utter  antagonism  :  the  infinitude 
of  the  creative  power  being  contingent  upon 
its  bringing  good  out  of  evil,  life  out  of  death. 
Conscious  antagonism  to  God  is  the  inevitable 
implication  of  the  created  form.  For  the  crea- 
ture being  the  unlimited  dependent  of  God,  it 
is  evident  that  he  must  be  in  himself  or  abso- 
lutely, /".  e.  to  all  the  extent  of  his  uncreation, 
so  to  speak,  or  phenomenal  disjunction  with 
God,  the  direct  denial  and  destitution  of  what 
he  becomes  by  his  subsequent  creation,  or  real 
conjunction  with  God.  If  the  creature  were 
not  a  creature,  then  1  grant  he  would  be  God 
himself,  infinite  in  all  his  attributes.  But  so 
long  as  he  is  a  creature  he  must  necessarily  be 
in-himself — in  that  thing  which  separates  him 
from  God  by  giving  him  identity  or  defining 
him  to  his  own  consciousness  —  the  exact  and 
total  opposite  of  God.  The  naked  fact  of  his 
creatureship  enjoins  that  he  be  in-himself  or  by 
uncreation,  the  total  destitution  of  what  he  be- 
comes in  God  or  by  creation.  This  intrinsic 
destitution  as  we  have  seen  is  the  inevitable 
mould  or  matrix  of  his  subsequent  Divine  en- 
largement, of  his  eventual  impletion  with  all 
Divine  perfection.  For  as  the  law  of  the  mould 
is  that  it  present  in  itself  the  exact  inversion  of 
the  thing  moulded,  it  follows  necessarily  that 
the  only  form  suited  to  inaugurate  God's  spirit- 


412         This  Interest  requires  that  he  be 

ual  kingdom,  is  one  which  shall  exhibit  not 
merely  the  absence  of  the  Divine  infinitude  or 
perfection,  but  the  intensest  actual  finiteness  or 
imperfection.  To  sum  up  all  in  a  word  :  an  ex- 
act inverse  ratio  must  obtain  between  what  the 
creature  is  in  himself  or  subjectively,  and  what 
he  becomes  in  God  or  objectively ;  between 
what  he  is  by  natural  genesis  merely,  and  what 
he  subsequently  becomes  by  spiritual  growth  or 
culture.  Otherwise  of  course,  his  consciousness 
will  lack  a  veracious  basis,  and  perish  like  a 
plant  cut  off  from  its  roots  in  the  ground,  or  a 
house  deprived  of  its  foundation. 

Thus  the  reader  perceives  that  if  it  be  true 
on  the  one  hand  that  God  gives  us  being  (cre- 
ates us)  only  in  so  far  as  he  gives  us  form 
(makes  us) :  it  is  equally  true  on  the  other  that 
the  essential  implication  of  the  form  thus  given, 
is  conscious  contrariety  to  Himself;  since  no 
other  consciousness  than  this  would  be  suitable 
to  base  creation,  by  conferring  on  the  creature  a 
valid  identity. 

Now  what  form  of  existence  actually  re- 
sponds to  this  inexorable  requisition,  actually 
presents  an  aspect  so  intrinsically  hostile  to  the 
Divine  infinitude,  as  makes  it  every  way  suitable 
to  inaugurate  creation,  by  affording  the  creature 
an  indisputably  valid  basis  of  consciousness,  a 
selfhood  so  inextinguishably  his  own,  that  for 
it  he  will  cheerfully  leave  father  and  mother  — 
/.  e.  renounce  his  allegiance  to  infinite  goodness 
and  truth  —  and  cleave  to  its  fortunes  through 
death  and  hell  ?     We  shall  see  in  one  moment. 


an  inverse  Image  of  God's  perfection.    413 

The  perfection  of  God  as  we  have  already 
seen  consists  in  His  unity,  that  unity  which 
makes  all  life  to  centre  in  Himself,  and  leaves 
Him  consequently  without  any  fellowship.  His 
unity  is  so  absolute  as  to  exclude  all  community, 
and  stamp  Him  the  only  One,  the  sole  Living 
and  True.  Thus  He  is  absolutely  void  of  lim- 
itation, being  perfect  or  infinite  in  Himself,  and 
hence  has  no  power  of  relation  to  others  save  in 
so  far  as  He  is  Himself  primarily  and  strictly 
creative  of  those  others.  His  unity  in  short  is 
made  up  of  two  elements,  universality  and  indi- 
viduality :  and  it  is  an  infinite  or  perfect  unity, 
because,  of  these  two  elements  the  latter  or  indi- 
vidual and  feminine  one,  involves  or  includes 
the  former  or  universal  and  masculine  one. 

Now  obviously  the  only  inverse  form  of  this 
absolute  unity  of  God  is  community,  which  is  a 
relative  or  partitive  unity,  made  up  of  its  sub- 
ject's participation  of  a  common  nature  with 
others,  and  shared  equally  by  those  others. 
Accordingly  if  we  would  lay  our  hand  upon 
a  form  of  life  answering  by  inversion  to  the 
Divine  infinitude  or  absoluteness  (/.  e.  infinite- 
ly finite,  absolutely  relative,  or  perfectly  imper- 
fect) we  shall  find  it  to  be  one  in  which  the 
masculine  or  universal  element  involves  and 
controls  the  feminine  or  individual  element ; 
that  is  to  say,  a  form  of  life  in  which  the  subject 
is  seen  partaking  a  community  of  nature  with 
others  :  this  community  of  course  limiting,  as  it 
confers,  all  his  individual  faculty  and  enjoyment. 

Now  where    shall   we   find    any  such  actual 


414        Community  the  essence  of  Nature 

form  of  life,  any  style  of  life  presenting  this  act- 
ual intrinsic  inversion  of  the  Divine  perfection? 
Manifestly  Nature  alone,  w^hat  vi^e  call  the 
natural  form  of  life  as  contradistinguished  from 
the  spiritual,  responds  to  our  summons.  Nature 
alone  supplies  that  communistic  quality  of  ex- 
istence which  renders  her  a  rigidly  inversive 
analogy  of  the  Divine  existence,  and  so  allows 
her  to  fix  creation,  to  finite  it  or  make  it  actual. 
Community  is  the  very  essence  of  nature,  every 
natural  subject  being  what  he  is  only  by  virtue 
of  his  birth  or  derivation  from  others,  thus  by 
virtue  of  his  participation  of  a  strictly  common 
nature  with  others.  The  subject  of  nature  ac- 
cordingly instead  of  being  infinite  or  perfect,  as 
God  is,  in  involving  his  own  substance,  is  of 
necessity  most  finite  or  imperfect  as  finding  his 
substance  wholly  without  him,  that  is  in  his 
relations  to  others.  In  fact  every  natural  sub- 
ject is  but  an  organized  form  of  want,  all  his 
natural  appetites  and  passions  being  so  many 
confessions,  not  of  his  subjective  possession  of 
anything,  but  of  his  objective  destitution  of  all 
things,  and  hence  so  many  unsuspected  but  gen- 
uine manacles  of  his  servitude  to  outlying  na- 
ture. Appetite  and  passion  are  the  marks  of 
an  imperfect  being,  because  they  express  not 
freedom  but  dependence,  not  wealth  but  pov- 
erty. God  consequently  is  without  these  limi- 
tations, while  man  naturally  viewed  is  wholly 
made  up  of  them  :  the  reason  of  the  difference 
being  that  the  former  is  essential  freedom,  the 
latter  essential  dependence. 


inversely  images  the  Divine  unity.       415* 

Nature  then  affords  that  essential  inexpug- 
nable basis  —  that  indispensable  and  only  ade- 
quate mould  —  of  the  Divine  operation  in  crea- 
tion of  which  we  are  in  search,  in  that  she  alone 
presents  an  inverse  image  of  the  Divine  perfec- 
tion, and  so  becomes  qualified  to  matriculate  the 
created  consciousness,  or  separate  between  crea- 
tor and  creature.  If  she  were  a  direct  image 
(which  is  however  a  contradiction  in  terms)  of 
the  Divine  perfection,  all  her  subjects  would  of 
course  passively  reflect  that  perfection ;  and 
consequently  in  place  of  any  line  of  demarca- 
tion, any  ground  of  discrimination,  offering 
itself  between  creator  and  creature,  the  latter 
must  inevitably  have  failed  of  his  identity,  must 
inevitably  have  forfeited  all  possibility  of  dis- 
tinctive character  or  personality  :  for  what 
rightful  property  could  the  creature  possess 
in  his  creator's  perfection  ?  It  is  thus  all  sim- 
ply the  fact  of  nature's  intrinsic  finiteness  or 
imperfection  which,  being  organized,  fits  her 
to  be  the  exact  and  admirable  matrix  or  vehi- 
cle of  the  Divine  creation,  and  justifies  Revela- 
tion in  placing  the  true  theatre  of  the  Divine 
power  on  the  earth,  or  identifying  the  unsullied 
Divine  glory  with  the  most  despised  dishon- 
ored and  dispirited  of  human  beings. 

We  now  see  our  Third  Proposition  to  be 
fully  justified,  or  understand  why  it  is  that  the 
true  form  of  the  Divine  creation  is  natural, 
since  no  other  form  could  worthily  matriculate 
the  creature  in  affording  him  conscious  separa- 
tion   or   projection   from    the    creator.     Nature 


4l6  Nature's  sole  funBion 

gives  the  creature  conscious  disjunction  with  the 
creator,  and  hence  makes  possible  any  amount 
of  subsequent  spiritual  conjunction  between 
them.  She  posits  the  creature  to  his  own  per- 
ception as  the  exact  and  total  opposite  of  God, 
so  emphasizing  or  intensifying  the  sweetness  of 
their  eventual  perfect  intimacy  and  fellowship. 
This  is  very  much  to  do  no  doubt ;  it  is  a  most 
indispensable  part  of  the  creative  process,  but  it 
is  evidently  altogether  preliminary.  It  is  only 
the  foundation  of  the  edifice,  and  furnishes  at  best 
but  an  inverse  hint  of  the  unimaginable  splen- 
dors of  the  superstructure.  So  long  as  the  nat- 
ural consciousness  dominates  the  Divine  creature 
in  the  interests  of  his  eternal  identity,  he  lives 
to  be  sure,  but  it  is  an  embryonic  life  :  he  has 
not  yet  come  to  spiritual  birth,  and  is  conse- 
quently destitute  of  that  grandly  human  con- 
sciousness which  is  the  consummate  fruit  of  the 
creative  operation. 

To  sum  up.  The  indisputable  function  of 
Nature,  her  inmost  soul  and  meaning,  is  to  fix 
creation,  is  to  afford  the  creature  indestructible 
identity  by  developing  in  him  such  an  abject  or 
unrelieved  community  with  other  things  as  shall 
stamp  him  intrinsically  finite  or  imperfect,  and 
so  array  him  in  implacable  conscious  antagonism 
to  the  Divine  name.  She  alone  supplies  this 
adequate  base  to  creation,  because  her  essential 
communism  affords  so  ample  and  ready  an  in- 
version of  the  Divine  infinitude,  as  suffices  to 
give  both  veracity  and  vivacity  to  the  created 
consciousness,  and  thereby  permanently  separate 


to  embody  Qr cation.  417 

between  creator  and  creature.  She  is  thus  a  pure 
incident  of  the  Divine  creation ;  or  if  an  end,  a 
wholly  mediate  and  transitional  one  ;  her  total  ef- 
ficacy lying  in  the  uses  she  promotes  to  something 
higher  than  herself,  namely  :  a  spiritual  or  strictly 
jz^p^r-natural  form  of  existence.  In  one  word  Na- 
ture is  rigidly  involved  in  man  or  the  spiritual 
creation  ;  and  instead  therefore  of  herself  involv- 
ing him,  she  does  nothing  but  systematically  and 
untiringly  evolve  him. 

Clear  notions  on  this  point  are  to  the  last  de- 
gree important.  Let  my  reader  not  fail  to  mark, 
then,  that  while  nature's  intrinsic  finiteness  or  im- 
perfection unquestionably  fits  her  for  the  great 
succulent  or  maternal  relation  she  fulfils  towards 
the  creature  —  fits  her  to  be  the  exact  and  admi- 
rable womb  of  creation  —  it  also  restricts  her  to 
this  purely  maternal  or  constitutive  use,  and  cuts 
her  off  from  any  creative  or  originative  pretensions 
towards  the  creature.  She  no  more  creates  him, 
or  gives  him  spiritual  being,  than  the  mother  cre- 
ates the  child,  than  the  acorn  creates  the  lordly 
oak  which  grows  out  of  its  tiny  bosom,  or  the  ^^^ 
creates  the  soaring  eagle  which  is  born  of  its  cor- 
ruption. Her  function  is  a  purely  incidental  one, 
falls  strictly  within  creation  proper  ;  being  all 
summed  up  in  fixing  the  creature,  in  giving  him 
that  merely  maternal  investiture  or  environment 
which  shall  consciously  alienate  him  from  God,  i.  e. 
make  him  another  than  God  to  his  own  conscious- 
ness ;  and  so  quality  him  for  his  subsequent  eter- 
nal spiritual  conjunction  with  God.  She  endows 
the  creature  with  material  form,  but  only  as  the 
27 


41 8  She  incorporates  Spirit. 

necessary  basis  of  his  true  or  spiritual  being.  She 
gives  him  root,  so  to  speak,  or  mineral  body : 
leaving  his  vegetative  growth  and  animal  motion, 
much  more  his  human  action,  to  a  wholly  oppo- 
site and  infinitely  superior  source.  She  is  thus 
only  the  lifeless  scaffolding  of  creation,  the  base 
and  abject  mud  of  mere  appearance,  out  of  which 
God's  true  or  spiritual  creature,  being  inwardly 
quickened  with  all  Divine  power,  emerges  at 
last  in  faultless  human  proportions.  In  truth 
nature  is  but  the  requisite  background  of  the 
human  consciousness,  the  needful  field  of  pro- 
jection which  the  Divine  workman  exacts,  in 
order  to  adapt  His  creative  skill  to  the  created 
intelligence  :  it  has  no  more  title  accordingly  to 
be  regarded  as  animating  the  work  or  giving  it 
spiritual  substance,  than  the  canvas  upon  which 
Raphael  painted  has  to  be  regarded  as  inspiring, 
or  giving  sesthetic  substance  to,  Raphael's  pic- 
tures. 


CHAPTER   XXIII. 

Such  is  the  broad  philosophic  Hght  which 
Swedenborg  interpreting  Revelation  casts  upon 
the  origin  of  Nature.  It  is  an  involution  of  the 
me  exclusively ;  an  implication  of  the  human 
form  ;  a  necessity  of  man's  subjective  or  literal 
identity  purely,  and  has  no  other  relation  there- 
fore to  the  not-me,  /.  e.  to  his  objective  or  spirit- 
ual being,  than  bricks  and  mortar  have  to  a  house, 
or  a  canvas  to  a  picture.  It  furnishes  him  with 
finite  constitution,  with  phenomenal  or  conscious 
existence  ;  and  to  that  extent  of  course  denies 
him  infinite  or  absolute  being  :  /.  e.  separates 
him  from  God.  Nature  is  involved  in  man, 
spiritually  regarded,  just  as  the  marble  is  in- 
volved in  the  statue  ;  that  is  to  say,  not  as  giv- 
ing it  spiritual  form  or  individuality,  but  .only 
material  substance  or  identity.  As  the  marble 
gives  phenomenal  substance  or  relief  to  the 
statue,  so  Nature  gives  phenomenal  substance 
or  background  to  man  :  but  she  no  more  vivi- 
fies or  creates  him  —  no  more  endows  him  with 
individuality  or  spiritual  being  —  than  the  mar- 
ble vivifies  or  creates  the  statue.  Her  indispu- 
table function  is  to  finite  the  creature,  to  fix  or 
identify  him  to  his  own  consciousness,  so  for- 
ever separating  him   from  God :   in  order  that 


420  Nature's  part  hi  Creation 

God  may  thereupon  spiritually  in-finite  him  by 
conjoining  him  freely  with  Himself. 

Thus  Nature  plays  an  altogether  subordinate 
part  in  the  great  drama  of  creation ;  not  a  prin- 
cipal or  controlling  part,  as  Religion  and  Science 
conceive,  but  a  purely  accessory  and  instrumental 
one.  Nature  is  the  mother  of  the  creature,  giv- 
ing him  finite  existence  merely ;  while  God 
alone  is  his  father,  giving  him  infinite  being, 
immortal  spiritual  life  as  well.  Nature  is  the 
convenient  medium  or  hyphen  which  really  or 
spiritually  disjoins  father  and  child,  while  ap- 
parently or  literally  conjoining  them,  by  endow- 
ing the  latter  with  her  own  finite  substance. 
But  this  is  literally  all  her  virtue.  She  has  no 
educative  or  vivifying  efficacy  over  this  still  un- 
couth unconscious  offspring  of  her  own  bowels. 
While  her  term  of  gestation  endures,  while  man 
is  still  in  embryo,  being  shut  up  to  purely  vege- 
table and  animal  conditions,  the  mother  under- 
goes any  amount  of  passive  anguish,  suffering 
at  times  intolerable  nausea  vertigo  and  syncope. 
And  she  releases  him  at  last  from  her  tender  an- 
chorage with  infinite  amazement  and  agony  to 
herself,  only  that  she  may  see  him  grow  away 
as  rapidly  as  possible  from  every  remembrance 
of  indebtedness  to  her,  and  bring  her  in  fact 
under  abject  vassalage  to  himself 

The  simple  fact  of  Nature's  being  this  purely 
incidental  or  mediatorial  force,  of  her  existence 
being  a  mere  implication  in  a  grandly  human  or 
spiritual  end,  empties  her  of  all  reality  except  to 
sense,   stamps   her  with  intrinsic  insignificance, 


is  purely  Mediatorial.  421 

pronounces  her  in  herself  void  of  hfe,  insensate, 
inanimate,  unconscious,  incapable  of  any  con- 
ceivable characteristic.  Accordingly  when  we 
see  her  to  be  actually  brimful  of  life,  teeming 
with  consciousness,  with  sensation,  with  every 
form  of  animation,  everywhere  pervaded  by 
character  or  distinctive  form,  fairly  bristling  all 
over  with  the  fiercest  self-assertion,  we  may  be 
sure  that  these  things  originate  not  in  her,  but 
in  something  distinctly  above  her;  /.  e.  confess 
no  natural,  but  an  intensely  supernatural  or  spir- 
itual origin.  And  what  Philosophy  does  for  us 
—  precisely  what  Philosophy,  following  the  lead 
of  Revelation,  does  for  us  in  emancipating  us 
from  the  tutelage  both  of  Natural  religion  and 
Natural  science  — ■  is,  so  to  trace  back  this  exu- 
berant life  of  Nature,  her  pervasive  conscious- 
ness, her  corrosive  personality,  her  endlessly  di- 
versified character,  to  the  very  infinitude  of  the 
Divine  power  as  embodied  and  illustrated  in 
Man  social  and  spontaneous,  as  infallibly  to  dis- 
perse all  doubt  of  her  origin  forever,  and  engage 
both  science  and  faith,  both  reason  and  sense,  in 
boundless  adoration. 

Nature's  existence  is  implied  in  man  as  the 
foundation  of  a  house  is  implied  in  the  super- 
structure ;  because  man  alone  avouches  himself 
the  true  end  of  creation,  inasmuch  as  he  alone 
livingly  images  or  reproduces  God's  spiritual 
perfection,  in  finding  his  principle  of  action 
within  himself,  and  denying  at  his  maturity  all 
outward  constraint  and  obligation.  The  human 
form  regarded  as  directly  vivified  or  inhabited  by 


422  Nature  is  implied  in  Man  as 

the  Infinite  is  of  that  rich  and  sovereign  make, 
that  it  involves  in  itself  every  lower  form  of  na- 
ture mineral  vegetable  and  animal ;  presupposes 
in  fact,  as  its  own  subjective  basis,  the  entire  uni- 
verse of  space  and  time  with  all  their  contents. 
Wc  cannot  help  conceiving  of  the  Divine  work 
as  thus  culminating  in  man,  because  man  is  the 
only  spiritual  being  we  know.  To  rob  creation 
therefore  of  its  strictly  human  crown  would  be 
to  reduce  it  to  an  abjectly  physical  process,  con- 
sisting at  best  in  giving  the  creature  natural  ani- 
mation, or  investing  him  with  rational  soul  as 
well  as  sensitive  body,  while  the  interests  of  his 
immortal  spiritual  individuality  were  wholly  left 
out. 

Of  course  it  is  inevitable  that  as  all  the  forms 
of  Nature  are  thus  involved  in  the  human  form, 
the  due  and  perfect  evolution  of  the  latter  should 
have  been  postponed  to  the  necessities  of  the 
former;  that  the  principal  should  remain  for  a 
long  time  obscured  by  the  accessory;  that  the 
inexperienced  traveller  in  fact  should  be  tempo- 
rarily blotted  out  and  buried  under  the  weight 
of  his  own  superincumbent  baggage,  so  that  it 
takes  millenniums  to  disengage  him  and  put  him 
on  his  proper  feet.  But  Nature  infallibly  fulfils 
her  office  in  the  long  run,  being  prompt  to  con- 
fess the  pervading  presence  of  a  great  spiritual 
force  which  we  call  History  or  Progress.  His- 
tory perfectly  explicates  the  implicit  contents  of 
Revelation,  by  bringing  out  in  clear  ineffaceable 
lines  the  inextinguishable  difference  between 
man  and  all  other  known  existences.     It  shows 


the  Body  is  implied  in  the  Soul.         423 

us  that  man  has  an  individuality  which  is  mani- 
festly disproportionate  to  his  nature,  while  theirs 
is  in  every  case  a  rigidly  proportionate  endow- 
ment ;  a  faculty  of  aesthetic  or  ideal  action  and 
passion,  to  which  there  is  nothing  whatever  in 
them  either  similar  or  second.  Let  me  dwell  on 
this  for  a  moment. 

The  reader  knows  that  it  would  be  supremely 
silly  to  talk  of  an  individual  animal's  "genius" 
as  we  do  of  an  individual  man's,  say  Shakspeare's 
or  Franklin's,  Why?  Because  the  animal  is 
utterly  servile  to  his  natural  instinct,  and  hence 
perfectly  devoid  of  that  power  of  distinctively 
individual  action  which  we  call  genius  in  man, 
and  which  as  it  excludes  a  physical  derivation 
confesses  of  necessity  a  purely  spiritual  sub- 
stance. The  animal  knows  no  happiness  but  in 
abject  submission  to  his  nature,  in  orderly  sub- 
jection to  all  its  appetites  and  passions.  Man 
on  the  contrary  by  an  instinct  of  his  paternal 
infinitude,  of  his  direct  derivation  from  God,  so 
resents  the  pretension  of  his  nature  to  control 
him,  that  he  rushes  madly  into  the  jaws  of  hell, 
into  all  manner  of  disorder  disease  and  death, 
rather  than  tolerate  it  for  a  moment.  The  ani- 
mal is  alike  incapable  either  of  elevation  into  the 
angel  or  of  degradation  into  the  devil  ;  simply 
because  he  is  an  animal  or  living  soul,  without 
being  at  the  same  time  like  man  a  quickening 
spirit ;  and  having  no  claim  therefore  to  that 
distinctively  human  capacity  of  freedom,  of 
which  angel  and  devil  are  only  the  positive  and 
negative  poles.     Every  man  on  the  contrary  in- 


424  History  means  the  Vindication 

eludes  in  his  bosom  the  highest  heavens  and  the 
lowest  hells,  or  the  profoundest  possibilities  both 
of  good  and  evil,  simply  because  he  is  man: 
/.  e.  because  the  unqualified  divinity  of  his 
origin  emancipates  him  from  the  control  of  his 
nature  :  the  devil  being  the  direct  or  negative 
and  disorderly  form  of  such  emancipation  ;  the 
angel  its  indirect  or  positive  and  orderly  form. 
The  slow  but  sure  vindication  then  of  the 
human  form  in  creation  or  of  the  supremacy  of 
Man  over  Nature,  is  what  is  meant  by  historic 
progress.  History  means  the  gradual  extrication 
of  the  human  consciousness  from  its  natural  or 
maternal  environment,  in  order  to  its  complete 
unimpeded  union  with  all  Divine  perfection. 
The  precise  historic  issue  aimed  at  and  accom- 
plished is,  such  a  thorough  separation  (through 
the  activity  of  the  Divine  spirit  in  human  na- 
ture) of  the  individual,  spiritual,  or  feminine 
element  in  consciousness,  from  the  merely  com- 
mon or  natural  and  masculine  element ;  and 
then  such  a  thorough  reduction  of  the  latter  to 
the  spontaneous  subserviency  of  the  former ;  as 
will  amount  practically  to  a  perfected  society 
OR  fellowship  among  men  :  which  fellowship 
or  society  accordingly  avouches  itself  as  the  in- 
most scope  and  meaning  of  man's  Providential 
destiny  on  earth ;  the  one  supreme  and  only 
interest  in  which  every  man  whatever  be  his 
internal  or  spiritual  distance  from  other  men, 
stands  indissolubly  united  with  his  race,  and 
may  become  to  the  fullest  degree  a  voluntary 
and   zealous  co-worker  with  God. 


of  the  Human  For?n  in  Creation.        425" 

Formation  is  thus  the  grand  philosophic  secret 
of  creation;  the  grand  controlling  interest  of  hu- 
man destiny.  To  find  the  true  and  adequate  form 
for  the  creative  substance,  for  the  infinite  Divine 
influx  and  indwelling,  constitutes  in  fact  the  very- 
mould  of  the  intellect,  and  the  measure  of  its 
perfect  enfranchisement.  By  the  necessity  of  his 
creation  man  is  a  composite  or  social  existence, 
not  a  simple  or  isolated  one.  He  is  created,  as  the 
symbolic  narrative  of  creation  in  Genesis  attests, 
both  male  and  female.  Now  when  we  talk  of 
what  man  is  by  creation,  we  mean  of  course 
what  he  is  in  God.  For  God  alone  creates  him, 
or  gives  him  being;  whatsoever  therefore  he  is 
by  creation,  he  is  exclusively  by  virtue  of  the 
Divine  Perfection.  But  being  implies  exist- 
ence ;  substance  implies  form.  That  is  to  say, 
whatsoever  the  creature  is  by  creation,  he  is 
bound  also  to  become  by  formation;  whatso- 
ever he  is  in  God,  he  is  bound  to  bring  forth  in 
himself;  under  penalty  of  leaving  creation  a 
mere  figure  of  speech.  If  then  by  creation 
man  be  not  a  simple  but  a  composite  existence; 
if  the  creative  Perfection  itself  require  that  he 
be  not  a  solitary  but  a  social  being;  it  follows 
of  course  that  his  very  form  as  man,  all  his  expe- 
rience of  himself,  his  inseparable  self-conscious- 
ness, must  reflect  this  necessity.  His  proper 
life  or  selfhood  must  in  order  to  his  imaging 
God  involve  two  movements,  one  statical,  the 
other  dynamical,  and  constitute  their  unity. 
That  is  to  say,  his  existence  must  be  both  natu- 
ral and  spiritual,  both  common  and  proper,  both 


426        Adam^  a  Symbol  of  the  Celestial, 

public  and  private,  both  universal  and  particu- 
lar, both  generic  and  specific,  both  broadly  iden- 
tical with  all  other  existence,  and  yet  intensely 
individual  and  distinct  from  it. 

Adam,  before  the  birth  of  Eve,  pictures  to  us 
what  man  is  by  creation  merely ;  an  eternal  in- 
fant, incapable  of  growing  in  love  and  wisdom 
and  power,  because  he  is  without  selfhood,  or 
personal  experience  ;  without  any  experience  of 
himself,  and  consequently  without  any  possibil- 
ity of  spiritual  reaction  towards  —  and  spiritual 
conjunction  with  —  his  infinite  source.  Were 
we  not  made  then  as  well  as  created  ;  did  not 
God  give  us  finite  existence  as  well  as  infinite 
being;  the  coarser  or  masculine  element  of  our 
consciousness,  the  universal  element  or  element 
of  identity  which  unites  us  with  our  race,  would 
so  dominate  and  absorb  the  finer  feminine  ele- 
ment, the  element  of  individuality,  which  unites 
us  with  God,  that  we  should  have  been  animals, 
not  men,  or  remained  mere  stunted  nurslings 
of  God's  assiduous  Providence.  Thus  creation 
philosophically  involves  formation  ;  requires 
that  the  creator  not  only  give  being  to  the  crea- 
ture —  which  He  does  by  the  communication 
to  him  of  His  own  spiritual  substance  or  perfec- 
tion—  but  also  that  He  give  him  form  :  that  is, 
a  power  to  react  towards  this  communication,  to 
expand  to  it,  receive  it,  appropriate  it,  make  it 
his  own,  reproduce  it  in  his  own  life  and  action. 
In  other  words  creation  legitimately  implies  that 
whatsoever  the  creator  be  in  Himself,  become 
actually  wrought  out  to  the  last  gasp  within  the 


Eve,  of  the  Natural,  Mind.  427 

creature's  proper  consciousness ;  become  intelli- 
gibly formulated  within  the  strictest  bounds  of 
the  creature's  own  experience ;  that  so  he  may 
spiritually  react  towards  the  creator,  and  that 
fellowship  or  conjunction  consequently  take 
place  between  them,  which  alone  is  immortal 
life. 

Revelation  confirms  this  philosophic  induc- 
tion, by  reporting  Adam  — who  in  the  symbolic 
Genesis  represents  the  merely  created  or  celestial 
man  —  as  without  selfhood  ;  as  the  mere  passive 
creature  of  the  Divine  power,  the  mere  passive 
recipient  of  Paradisiacal  delights  :  for  Adam 
there  was  not  found  a  help-meet  for  him.  With 
Eve  accordingly,  who  symbolizes  his  Divinely 
vivified  selfhood,  Adam's  proper  personal  expe- 
rience begins ;  or  the  negative  innocence  of 
childhood  prepares  itself  to  be  taken  up  into  the 
positive  innocence  of  ripe  and  wise  manhood. 
I  say  "prepares  itself,"  for  Eve,  though  she  be 
an  indispensable  and  invaluable  acquisition  to 
Adam.,  fails  for  a  time  to  avouch  that  fact  very 
clearly.  In  other  words,  the  selfhood  in  man, 
Divinely  quickened  in  his  bosom,  is  spiritually 
inexpert  and  ignorant,  being  dependent  at  first 
of  course  upon  sense  (symbolically,  the  serpent) 
for  all  its  knowledge ;  and  sense,  though  a  very 
good  servant,  is  a  very  stupid  master.  Sense 
has  no  perception  of  infinite  but  only  of  finite 
substance ;  thus  of  good  as  limited  by  evil,  of 
truth  as  limited  by  falsity,  of  beauty  as  limited 
by  deformity,  of  pleasure  as  limited  by  pain, 
and  so  forth ;  and  it  consequently  persuades  us, 


428  Man  knows  himself  at  first 

in  spite  of  every  sacredest  tradition  we  may 
have  heard  to  the  contrary,  that  to  eat  dihgently 
of  the  tree  of  knowledge  of  good  and  evil  is 
the  one  infallible  method  of  becoming  wise. 
The  innocent  tender  babe,  who  sees  heaven  laid 
bare  to  its  imagination  in  the  fragrant  pastures 
of  its  mother's  bosom,  has  for  a  long  time  no 
wink  of  recognition  to  bestow  upon  the  wrinkled 
paternal  visage  which  is  making  all  sorts  of 
mendicant  signals  to  it  over  the  maternal  shoul- 
der. Exactly  so  with  the  innocent  new-born 
Eve  of  our  bosoms,  our  tender  God-quickened 
selfhood.  We  know  ourselves  at  first  only 
on  the  mother's  side,  only  as  identified  by  Na- 
ture, being  altogether  cradled  in  her  lap,  and 
nursed  on  her  generous  breasts;  and  what  can 
we  know  without  larger  experience,  what  can 
we  livingly  know,  know  except  from  tradition, 
of  our  higher  paternity  ?  Manifestly  nothing. 
We  have,  and  can  have,  no  ear  but  for  the  sub- 
tle and  sweet  and  succulent  invitations  of  sense, 
nor  consequently  any  doubt  of  becoming  like 
God  in  diligently  cultivating  a  finite  righteous- 
ness, which  means,  seeking  to  be  good  by  right  of 
nature,  instead  of  Divine  right  exclusively.  Thus 
the  first  and  highest  possible  service  which  Eve 
renders  Adam  is  to  throw  him  out  of  Paradise : 
/.  e.  strip  him  of  the  innocence  which  he  has 
by  creation  merely,  and  which  consists  only  with 
ignorance  of  his  proper  self,  in  order  finally  to 
clothe  him  with  the  innocence  which  he  will 
have  by  virtue  of  a  Divine  redemption  of  his 
nature,  and  which  is  one  with  the  profoundest 


only  as  Sensuously  defined.  429 

wisdom,  or  experience  of  selfhood.  This  is 
the  mystery  of  that  toil  and  sorrow  which  are 
to  lift  man's  earthly  or  outward  life  to  an  equal- 
ity with  his  celestial  or  inward  life ;  of  those 
long-protracted  pangs  of  intellectual  labor,  which 
ultimately  bring  forth  a  Divine  fruit  in  the  natu- 
ral plane  of  the  mind  no  less  than  the  spiritual. 
In  fine  here  lies  the  beginning  of  our  social 
culture  and  discipline  ;  of  that  persistent  untir- 
ing devoted  struggle  on  the  part  of  the  spiritual 
element  in  life  —  on  the  part  of  the  woman 
within  us  —  to  satisfy  the  craving  of  her  stolid 
material  mate  after  infinite  delights,  which  is  the 
meaning  of  all  history,  and  which  is  Divinely 
prospered  and  fulfilled  only  in  the  social  destiny 
of  man. 

This  is  the  secret  of  Swedenborg's  unequalled 
services  to  Philosophy,  that  he  turns  creation 
from  an  event  in  time  and  space  antedating 
knowledge,  and  therefore  totally  uninteresting 
to  human  belief,  into  a  most  orderly  develop- 
ment of  our  own  historic  consciousness  ;  into 
an  intimate  outbirth  of  our  own  associated  ex- 
perience ;  turns  it  in  fact  into  a  most  tender, 
protracted,  and  at  last  successful,  wooing  and 
consequent  marriage,  of  the  human  by  the  Di- 
vine nature,  in  which  no  interest  of  the  weaker 
party  is  overlooked  or  sacrificed,  but  on  the  con- 
trary every  interest  is  unswervingly  respected, 
maintained  in  honor,  and  infinitely  promoted. 
He  reduces  the  orthodox  conception  of  creation, 
as  an  event  in  space  and  time,  transacted  over 
our  heads  and  without  our  intelligent  privity,  to 


43° 


Swedenborg  compels  Creation 


absurdity,  or  self-contradiction,  because  it  makes 
the  creature  a  mere  will-of-the-wisp,  by  robbing 
him  of  soul,  of  selfhood,  of  that  natural  identity 
or  fixity  which  alone  is  competent  to  base  his 
spiritual  individuality.  Selfhood  or  identity  is 
a  composite  not  a  simple  fact.  That  is  to  say 
it  is  a  fact  of  the  strictest  consciousness,  imply- 
ing the  marriage  of  a  common  riature  with  a 
specific  form.  No  form  exists  which  is  wholly 
unconscious  or  inanimate,  though  of  course  con- 
sciousness itself  assumes  infinitely  diversified 
aspects  :  here  a  very  diffuse  and  lethargic  one, 
as  in  the  mineral  form  of  existence ;  there  a 
very  concentrated  and  energetic  one,  as  in  man : 
but  in  all  its  forms  alike  it  announces  the  union 
of  a  common  or  identical  substance  with  a  spe- 
cific or  individual  form.^ 


1  We  think  the  mineral  exist- 
ence unconscious,  because  it  is 
so  remote  a  form  of  consciousness 
from  ours,  that  we  can  hardly  re- 
produce it.  But  if  we  should 
accidentally  fall  from  the  roof 
of  a  house  or  any  equal  height, 
and  be  unfortunate  enough  to  sur- 
vive, we  might  by  afterwards  re- 
calling to  remembrance  the  sen- 
sation we  felt  during  the  fall, 
make  an  approximate  estimate 
of  the  mineral  consciousness.  Of 
course  we  should  have  known  it 
only  in  inverted  and  most  revolt- 
ing form  :  because  as  our  per- 
sonality alienates  us  to  the  great- 
est possible  extent  from  the  min- 
eral consciousness,  we  cannot 
come  into  the  conditions  of  that 
consciousness  without  the  utmost 


violence  to  our  own.  But  nev- 
ertheless by  translating  our  nega- 
tive human  experience  into  the 
positive  mineral  one,  or  inter- 
preting the  intense  and  indeed 
agonizing  moral  revolt  we  feel 
under  the  circumstances,  by  the 
mere  expeiience  of  inertia  —  or 
abandonment  to  the  overpower- 
ing force  of  gravitation  —  which 
the  mineral  feels,  we  shall  be 
able  to  compass  a  near  view  of 
the  mineral  consciousness,  or  pic- 
ture to  our  intelligence  the  state 
of  anjesthesia  or  drunkenness  — 
/.  e.  nearly  utter  submergence  ot 
individual  sensibility  in  a  sense 
of  diffused  existence  —  which 
characterizes  what  we  very  ab- 
surdly call  inorganic  nature,  or 
brute  matter. 


I 


into  the  Limits  of  Consciousness.         431 

Selfhood  then  or  existence  utterly  refuses  to 
be  conceived  of  as  created,  in  the  sense  vulgarly 
attributed  to  that  word,  /,  e.  as  denoting  an  out- 
ward exhibition  of  Divine  power;  because  it  in- 
variably implies  or  presupposes  the  parentage  of 
a  common  substance  and  a  specific  form.  What 
sheer  childishness  to  conceive  of  a  tree,  or  a 
horse,  or  any  other  natural  object,  having  been 
created  by  an  arbitrary  fiat  of  some  superior 
power,  and  without  the  implication  of  a  natural 
generation!  But  how  absolutely  shocking  to 
conceive  of  moral  existence  as  so  created !  It 
utterly  outrages  the  truth  of  things  to  conceive 
of  character,  personality,  as  outwardly  derived 
or  conferred.  Characteristic  or  personal  exist- 
ence is  free  existence  ;  and  freedom  always 
means  —  unless  it  be  employed  as  it  frequently 
is  to  express  simple  jail-delivery  or  emancipa- 
tion —  the  power  of  an  inward  life ;  that  is,  the 
union  of  an  inward  object  and  an  outward  sub- 
ject. 

Three  sorts  of  freedom  or  life  are  known  to 
us,  each  of  which  alike  resolutely  disowns  an 
outward  origin:  1.  Physical  or  passive  freedom, 
of  which  instinct  is  the  symbol,  and  which  con- 
sists in  doing  whatsoever  the  heart  pronounces 
good :  i.  e.  in  having  all  the  passions  and  appe- 
tites of  one's  nature  in  due  or  normal  exercise  : 

2.  Moral  or  active  freedom,  whose  symbol  is 
will,  and  which  consists  in  doing  whatsoever 
the  intellect  pronounces  true,  even  if  it  should 
contradict    what    the    heart    feels    to    be   good : 

3.  Spiritual  or  essential  freedom,  whose  badge 


43^  Both  our  Identity  and  our  Individuality 

is  spontaneity,  growing  out  of  the  reconciliation 
or  marriage  of  good  in  the  heart  with  truth  in 
the  understanding,  and  which  consists  accord- 
ingly in  the  total  harmony  of  one's  outward  life 
with  one's  inward  aspiration  :  /.  e.  in  one's  being 
precisely  what  one  wishes  to  be,  and  seeming 
precisely  what  one  is.  These  are  the  three  uni- 
versal modes  of  what  we  call  freedom,  selfhood, 
life,  consciousness,  in  man ;  and  it  is  obvious  to 
a  glance  that  each  alike  repugns  the  least  out- 
ward dictation.  You  may  indeed  obstruct  the 
manifestation  of  this  freedom  under  any  of  its 
forms.  You  may  by  your  conscious  or  uncon- 
scious tyranny  debar  it  its  due  and  adequate  ex- 
ercise:  but  you  can  neither  give  it  nor  take  it 
away.  It  is  God's  own  life  in  the  subject,  the 
enticing,  endearing,  ravishing  Eve  whom  God 
alone  quickens  within  him,  radiant  flesh  of  his 
flesh,  most  intimate  bone  of  his  bone;  and  he 
cleaves  to  it  accordingly  with  a  tenacity  which 
makes  it  comparatively  easy  to  renounce  father 
and  mother;  /.  e.  turns  the  sacredest  traditions 
of  Church  and  State,  when  they  set  themselves 
against  it,  into  empty  or  at  best  mercenary 
clamor. 

Creation  then  considered  as  a  physical  proced- 
ure of  God,  as  a  work  executed  in  space  and 
time,  is  an  unmitigated  absurdity.  Physical 
creation,  which  is  the  making  one's  being  to 
derive  from  one's  flesh  and  blood,  or  the  ma- 
king one's  nature  the  ground  not  only  of  his 
identity  or  conscious  existence,  but  also  of 
his    individuality    or    unconscious    life,    is    tan- 


are  mere  Masks  of  God's  Presence  in  us.   433 

tamount  in  conception  to  the  exhaustion  of 
the  creator  by  the  creature :  the  giver  being 
inevitably  finited  in  se  by  his  gift,  the  receiver 
z/z-finited  in  se.  Being  is  identical  or  one  with 
itself  To  suppose  one  being  therefore  out- 
wardly conferring  his  own  being  upon  another 
spatially  and  temporally  distant  from  himself, 
is  to  allege  the  former's  diminution  in  the  exact 
ratio  of  the  latter's  enlargement.  God's  being 
is  inseparable  from  Himself;  is  His  perfection 
or  character ;  so  that  in  creating  or  giving  be- 
ing to  another,  He  simply  communicates  Him- 
self to  that  other.  Thus  both  our  natural  self- 
hood or  identity  (considered  as  the  base),  and 
our  spiritual  individuality  (considered  as  the 
superstructure,  of  God's  work  in  creation),  con- 
fess themselves  mere  transparent  masks  of  the 
Divine  presence  in  us  :  the  one  being  that  gor- 
geous many-colored  visible  temple  of  His  abode, 
whither  all  the  tribes  of  the  earth  go  up  to 
worship :  the  other  that  invisible  holy  of  holies, 
where  He  dwells  unapproached  and  unsuspected 
save  by  those  alone  who  have  been  spiritually  as 
well  as  naturally  quickened,  and  who  render 
Him  consequently  no  ritual  but  an  exclusively 
living  devotion. 

28 


CHAPTER    XXIV. 

What  will  our  existing  religion  and  science 
say  to  these  things  ?  Neither  of  them  is  likely 
to  admit  with  any  too-ready  complacency,  that 
neither  our  finite  nor  our  rational  parts,  neither 
our  bodies  nor  our  souls,  neither  our  substantial 
identity  with,  nor  our  formal  diversity  from, 
all  other  existence,  has  the  least  basis  outside  of 
consciousness.  Yet  the  truth  is  philosophically 
indisputable.  Body  and  mind  are  both  alike 
an  unceasing  spiritual  communication  —  a  per- 
petual living  operation  or  miraculous  creation 
—  of  God  in  our  nature.  It  is  manifest  that  God 
cannot  create  anything,  cannot  make  anything  be, 
save  in  so  far  as  He  communicates  Himself  to 
it.  And  just  as  evidently  He  cannot  communi- 
cate Himself  to  anything,  save  in  so  far  as  the 
thing  be  previously  adapted  to  the  communica- 
tion, be  a  form  receptive  of  the  communication. 
Now  God  being  Himself  the  all  of  life,  it  is 
clear  that  the  only  form  of  life  answering  to  His 
life  or  imaging  His  perfection,  must  be  a  com- 
posite or  social  form,  must  be  as  the  good  book 
alleges,  both  male  and  female :  /.  e.  unite  in 
itself  the  two  elements  of  universality  or  iden- 
tity and  individuality :  so  that  creation  spirit- 
ually regarded  amounts  to  this,  namely:    such 


Hhe  Problem  of  Creation  435: 

a  restless  and  resistless  motion  of  God's  spirit  in 
the  depths  of  human  nature,  as  will  finally  issue 
in  a  perfect  society,  fellowship,  or  brotherhood 
among  men,  in  which  whatsoever  belongs  to  the 
collective  life  of  its  members  shall  receive  the 
unfaltering  allegiance  of  the  individual  life  ;  and 
whatsoever  belongs  to  the  individual  develop- 
ment of  its  members  shall  receive  the  unfalter- 
ing sustenance  of  the  collective  interest. 

Neither  religion  nor  science  conceives  of  crea- 
tion in  this  orderly  plight ;  as  this  infinitely  ten- 
der, solicitous,  and  reverential  condescension  of 
the  Divine  spirit  to  every  abject  need  both  of 
our  common  nature  and  our  specific  form.  Re- 
ligion is  vitalized  by  sense,  and  sense  affirms 
without  misgiving  the  proper  infinitude  of  Na- 
ture. Science  is  vitalized  by  reason,  and  reason 
affirms  without  misgiving  the  proper  absolute- 
ness of  Man.  Neither  of  them  dreams  that 
God  Himself  is  so  intimately  and  vitally  present 
both  in  Nature  and  humanity,  as  to  challenge  to 
Himself  exclusively  the  infinitude  and  absolute- 
ness which  they  reveal.  You  are  sure  therefore 
to  affront  sense  and  reason,  faith  and  science, 
with  equal  poignancy,  when  you  deny  the  in- 
finitude of  the  natural,  and  the  absoluteness  of 
the  moral  consciousness,  by  affirming  that  they 
both  alike  possess  in  themselves  no  objective 
but  a  purely  subjective  validity.  Let  us  pause 
here  a  moment. 

The  problem  which  creation  presents  to  the 
eye  of  the  mind  is  this  :  How  shall  that 
which  is  intrinsically  void  of  life  —  whose  very 


436     'The  Incapacity  of  Faith  and  Science 

nature  is  not-to-be  save  in  so  far  as  being  is  per- 
petually given  it  by  the  bounty  of  another  — 
attain  to  consciousness  :  /.  e.  to  any  such  actual 
separation  from  its  creative  source  as  all  self- 
hood implies,  and  is  rationally  indispensable  in- 
deed to  its  own  experience  of  existence  ?  What 
is  selfhood  ?  It  is  the  feeling  of  life  within 
one  as  one's  own  —  that  is,  the  feeling  of  one's 
proper  infinitude  —  to  the  entire  extent  of  one's 
natural  identity;  the  feeling  of  life  within  one 
as  one's  own  —  /.  e.  the  feeling  of  one's  proper 
absoluteness  —  within  the  limits  of  one's  rational 
individuality.  Manifestly  then  existence  or  self- 
hood cannot  be  arbitrarily  imposed,  or  outwardly 
conferred  upon  its  subject  by  the  will  or  the  act 
of  another,  even  if  that  other  be  God ;  but 
must  be  an  inward  or  bosom  experience  of  the 
subject  bred  of  the  strictest  truth  of  the  case, 
and  reflecting  such  truth  exclusively. 

Here  then  is  the  hopeless  bewilderment,  both 
of  faith  and  science,  to  reconcile  this  finite  cre- 
ated selfhood  with  the  infinite  creative  substance; 
or  disconnect  the  omnipotent  fountain  with  the 
derivative  and  utterly  dependent  stream  in  a 
manner  so  thorough,  as  shall  insure  their  ever- 
lasting harmony  by  making  it  impossible  that 
the  former  shall  ever  pinch  or  prove  penurious 
to  the  latter,  the  latter  ever  swallow  up  or  sup- 
plant the  former.  For  if  the  strictest  truth  of 
the  case  give  a  created  subject ;  then  inas- 
much as  it  is  the  nature  of  created  things  to 
be  void  of  life  in  themselves  and  to  depend  on 
others  for  it,  the  created  subject  so  given  will  be 


to  solve  the  Problem  of  Creation.        437 

able  to  attain  to  consciousness  or  the  experience 
of  existence,  only  so  far  evidently  as  the  creative 
Love  gives  it  natural  organization  :  i.  e.  vivifies 
its  intrinsic  death  or  destitution  of  life,  by  the 
communication  to  it  of  His  own  immortality. 
And  what  right  have  either  faith  or  science  to 
anticipate  Philosophy  (which  alone  intelligently 
avouches  the  Divine  infinitude)  by  alleging  any 
such  resources  in  the  creative  Love  as  qualify 
it  to  meet  this  exigency  of  the  created  nature  ? 
Evidently  not  the  least  right.  The  sole  basis 
of  faith  is  sense,  and  sense  drowns  the  infinite 
in  the  finite.  The  sole  basis  of  science  is  rea- 
son, and  reason  drowns  the  absolute  in  the  rela- 
tive. Both  faith  and  science  consequently,  so 
long  as  they  are  uncontrolled  by  Philosophy, 
are  totally  unable  to  conceive  the  creative 
infinitude,  and  hence  to  suggest  any  such  re- 
sources in  Deity  as  alone  suffice  to  account 
for  creation.  They  are  both  alike  prevented 
from  formulating  any  doctrine  of  creation, 
by  their  omission  to  see  in  Nature  the  only 
thing  which  summons  her  into  being,  and  jus- 
tifies her  apparition,  namely :  her  unqualified 
subserviency  to  a  higher  life  than  her  own ; 
her  absolutely  indispensable  uses  to  our  social 
or  spiritual  manhood.  They  both  alike  con- 
cur in  regarding  Nature  as  the  direct  and  fin- 
ished product  of  creative  power,  so  making 
the  spiritual  world,  which  is  the  universe  of 
the  human  mind,  fall  within  Nature,  in  place 
of  making  Nature  fall  exclusively  within  it. 
In  these  circumstances  one  of  two  fatalities 


43^  Atheism  or  Pantheism 

impends :  either  the  human  mind,  outraging  its 
own  profoundest  instincts,  must  decline  into 
Atheism,  so  denying  creation  altogether ;  or 
else,  outraging  its  own  invincible  rationality, 
must  accept  Pantheism,  so  turning  creation  in 
any  honest  undebauched  use  of  the  term  into  a 
derisive  will-of-the-wisp,  or  morbid  exhalation 
of  human  fatuity.  For  evidently  if  we  admit 
the  Divine  existence  at  all,  then  inasmuch  as  its 
very  perfection  —  that  which  constitutes  it  Di- 
vine in  a  word  —  consists  in  its  unity,  in  its  be- 
ing the  all  of  life,  it  is  irrational  to  conclude  that 
there  should  be  any  other  absolute  existence. 
Derivative  existence  is  in  itself  and  of  necessity 
simple  zero,  utterly  formless  and  void,  void  both 
of  inward  substance  and  outward  seeming,  void 
in  short  of  all  identity  and  all  individuality. 
Whatever  it  has  of  either  of  these  things  it 
can  have  only  apparently  in  itself,  and  really  in 
God.  Absolutely  therefore  there  can  be  no  such 
form  of  life  as  the  natural  one :  /'.  e.  a  form  of 
life  bearing  so  inverse  an  aspect  towards  the 
Divine  infinitude,  as  to  be  entitled  thereupon  to 
a  distinctive  consciousness :  and  the  unenlight- 
ened reason  of  man  consequently  stands  aghast 
before  the  problem  of  the  natural  creation  ;  be- 
ing compelled  to  reject  it  honestly  and  outright 
by  a  profession  of  Atheism,  or  else  to  attempt 
circumventing  it  by  a  timid  Pantheistic  solution. 
For  if  such  forms  of  life  as  are  here  contemplat- 
ed do  not  and  cannot  exist  absolutely  or  of 
themselves,  and  yet  do  actually  exist  to  their 
own    consciousness    in   the    greatest    profusion, 


Necessarily  results.  439 

then  the  inference  is  clear,  that  this  actual  ex- 
istence of  theirs  is  involved  in  some  higher 
form  of  life,  /.  e.  is  owing  to  some  virtue  of 
the  creative  Love,  which  Science  is  impotent 
to  discover  by  the  light  of  reason  (though 
most  competent  to  appreciate  when  discov- 
ered), and  which  Philosophy  therefore,  follow- 
ing the  light  of  Revelation,  brings  to  our 
knowledge. 

Let  my  reader  bear  with  me,  if  I  seem  to 
linger  on  this  topic.  I  am  sure  his  intellectual 
advantage  will  be  consulted,  if  we  perfectly  es- 
timate the  part  Religion  has  played  in  our  intel- 
lectual evolution. 

Religion  exacts  no  strictly  human  or  creative 
perfection  in  God,  because  it  takes  Nature  as 
given  in  sense,  /.  e.  as  a  final  and  not  as  an 
instrumental,  achievement  of  the  Divine  om- 
nipotence ;  as  a  result,  and  not  as  a  process 
towards  a  result.  It  looks  upon  Nature  as  a 
substance  in  her  own  right  ;  as  an  end,  not 
as  a  means  to  an  end  ;  as  a  finished  gem  rather 
than  the  crude  ore  which  embeds  the  gem  ;  as 
being  herself  God's  true  creature,  rather  than 
the  purely  material  and  maternal  investiture, 
by  which  the  creature  becomes  built  up  and 
identified  to  his  own  consciousness.  Science 
gives  her  no  furtherance  in  this  career,  but  only 
impediment.  Science  does  nothing  but  exalt  the 
concept  of  the  finite  as  given  in  sense,  into  that 
of  the  relative  as  given  in  reason  ;  so  completing 
an  intellectual  basis  for  that  rich  demonstration  of 
the  Infinite  in  the  finite,  and  of  the  Absolute  in 


440       God  is  bound  to  give  His  Creature 

the  relative,  which  Philosophy  will  ultimately 
enact.  Philosophy  becomes  able  to  throw  a 
commanding  light  upon  the  origin  of  existence, 
only  by  heeding  the  voice  of  Revelation,  which 
turns  Nature  from  a  principal  into  a  mere  acces- 
sory of  the  Divine  creation ;  from  the  creature 
itself  into  a  wondrous  and  exquisite  mould  of 
the  creature.  Until  Philosophy  come  therefore 
to  avouch  and  fulfil  the  intellectual  promise  both 
of  religion  and  science,  the  human  mind  will 
be  seen  on  the  one  hand  declining,  under  the 
auspices  of  what  calls  itself  Positive  Science, 
into  the  helpless  drivel  of  Atheism  ;  on  the 
other,  under  the  patronage  of  German  idealism, 
which  is  what  now  passes  for  Philosophy,  into 
the  stuck-up  and  conceited  waiting-maid  of  Pan- 
theism. 

For  how  is  it  conceivable  upon  the  data  of 
reason,  which  in  the  absence  of  Philosophy  are 
absolute  over  religion,  that  Nature  should  exist 
at  all :  that  is,  that  there  should  be  any  actual 
form  of  life  answering  by  antagonism  to  the  Di- 
vine perfection  :  while  yet  the  very  possibility 
of  consciousness  suspends  itself  upon  such  exist- 
ence ?  It  would  be  easy  enough  doubtless  for 
us  rationally  to  conceive  how  —  a  suitable  form 
being  already  extant  or  provided  to  the  Divine 
hand,  as  clay  is  provided  to  the  potter  —  the  Di- 
vine life  might  inflow,  and  fill  it  with  His  own 
bliss  to  eternity.  But  no  such  form  is  provided 
to  the  Divine  hand.  The  Divine  skill  is  bound 
to  give  its  creature  conscious  form  as  well  as 
unconscious  being  or  substance  :  is  bound  not 


Consciousness  as  well  as  Being.         441 

only  to  vivify  the  creature  with  His  own  vital 
spirit,  but  also  to  invest  him  previously  with 
that  unmistakable  natural  selfhood  or  identity, 
which  shall  make  such  vivification  a  valid  fact 
of  experience,  an  actual  fact  of  history,  and  not 
a  despicable  figure  of  speech  or  verbal  juggle. 
It  is  as  if  the  potter  should  himself  give  being 
to  the  clay  out  of  which,  as  well  as  conception  to 
the  form  into  which,  his  work  is  moulded.  If 
any  such  creative  relation  as  this  on  the  part  of 
the  potter  to  his  clay  existed,  the  figure  he  moulds 
would  be  no  longer  artificial,  that  is,  devoid  of 
natural  life  or  consciousness,  but  would  on  the 
contrary  glow  with  selfhood. 

Clearly  then  the  only  thing  that  saves  cre- 
ation from  the  odious  slaver  of  Pantheism, 
the  only  thing  that  makes  its  flowing  waters 
musical,  and  keeps  its  wandering  breezes  for- 
ever sane  and  sweet,  is  the  ineffaceable  truth 
of  the  creature's  identity  under  whatever  inten- 
sity of  the  creative  influx  and  inhabitation.  In 
himself,  or  naturally,  the  creature  is  but  a  form 
or  image  of  Life,  dependent  every  moment  for 
all  that  he  is  and  all  that  he  enjoys  upon  the 
unstinted  communication  of  that  Life.  Obvi- 
ously therefore  unless  he  present  on  his  natural 
or  maternal  side  a  complete  inversion  of  the 
creative  perfection,  nothing  can  guarantee  the 
reality  of  creation  ;  nothing  can  hinder  it  turn- 
ing out  an  abject  stifling  sty  of  Pantheism.  I 
say  this  is  obvious  ;  because,  as  we  have  seen, 
if  the  created  form  should  exhibit  any  direct 
analogy   with   the   creative    substance,   all    basis 


442  'The  inevitable  Implication 

of  discrimination  would  be  lacking  between 
itself  and  the  inflowing  Divine  life  ;  and  with 
that  of  course  all  faculty  of  self-recognition,  all 
possibility  of  consciousness.  The  sole  possible 
basis  of  identity  for  the  creature,  the  only  con- 
ceivable ground  for  attributing  distinctive  char- 
acter or  selfhood  to  him,  lies  in  his  being  in 
himself  a  direct  contrast  to  the  creator :  empty 
where  He  is  full,  impotent  where  He  is  omnipo- 
tent, ignorant  where  He  is  omniscient,  evil  where 
He  is  good.  Did  he  not  possess  this  formal  con- 
stitutional identity,  were  he  not  by  nature  the 
characteristic  well-defined  opposite  of  all  Divine 
perfection,  he  could  not  possibly  be  a  proper 
object  of  the  creative  Love :  since  the  very  dis- 
tinction of  that  Love,  regarded  as  infinite  or 
pure  of  all  infirmity,  is  that  it  is  utterly  void  of 
self-love,  having  no  respect  to  any  worthiness  in 
its  object  but  what  grows  out  of  the  object's 
utter  want.  It  is  no  doubt  very  tolerable  finite 
or  creaturely  love  to  love  one's  own  in  another, 
to  love  another  for  his  conformity  to  oneself: 
but  nothing  can  be  in  more  flagrant  contrast  with 
the  creative  Love,  all  whose  tenderness  ex  vi  ter- 
mini must  be  reserved  only  for  what  intrinsically 
is  most  bitterly  hostile  and  negative  to  itself 

The  truth  cannot  be  otherwise.  So  long  as 
God  creates  or  gives  being  to  the  creature  only 
by  unreservedly  communicating  Himself  to  him, 
He  must  do  so  in  a  way  not  to  overpower  the 
creature  or  rob  him  of  his  proper  identity,  but 
on  the  contrary  must  allow  him  to  expand  to 
the   rankest  luxuriance   of   his   nature.      He   is 


of  the  finite  Consciousness. 


443 


bound  to  allow  all  the  evil  and  falsity  which 
exist  potentially  in  the  created  nature  to  come 
to  the  surface,  to  come  to  the  creature's  con- 
sciousness by  becoming  actual :  otherwise  the 
creature  must  forever  remain  destitute  of  dis- 
tinctive consciousness.  When  this  conscious- 
ness is  perfect ;  when  the  creature  truly  perceives 
the  imperfection  he  is  under  by  nature ;  when 
by  an  actual  experience  of  life  he  perceives  him- 
self to  be  prone  to  all  manner  of  iniquity ;  he 
becomes  spiritually  disengaged  from  his  natural 
foundations,  exchanges  his  native  pride  and  ob- 
duracy for  modesty  and  docility,  and  inwardly 
looks  up  to  God  for  help.  He  is  now  no  longer 
a  mere  abject  creature  of  God,  but  his  sympa- 
thetic associate  or  fellow ;  no  longer  a  servant, 
but  a  son.-" 


1  If  I  were  by  nature  good 
instead  of  evil,  1  could  not  dis- 
tinguish between  the  Divine 
good  and  my  own,  for  all  good- 
ness is  one :  nor  consequently 
exert  the  least  spiritual  grasp  or 
appropriation  of  the  inflowing 
Divine  life,  in  which  appropria- 
tion nevertheless  my  creation 
rigidly  consists.  In  short,  if  I 
were  good  by  nature  and  not  by 
culture  exclusively,  good  by  gen- 
eration and  not  by  the  strictest 
regeneration,  good  in  myself  or 
finitely  as  well  as  in  God  or  infi- 
nitely ;  then  good  could  never 
attract  my  aspiration,  could 
never  provoke  my  emulation  : 
for  no  one  aspires  to  what  he 
already  possesses,  nor  emulates 
that   in  another  which    reminds 


him  only  of  himself.  Of  course 
all  this  evil  in  the  creature  is 
properly  an  incident  of  his  natu- 
ral consciousness  merely,  and 
has  no  manner  of  pertinency  to 
his  spiritual  creation.  It  is  a 
fact  purely  of  his  subjective  con- 
stitution, pertaining  to  him  only 
on  his  finite  phenomenal  side : 
and  has  no  relation  whatever  to 
his  spiritual  individuality  or  the 
objective  being  which  he  has  ex- 
clusively in  God.  It  character- 
izes him  as  still  uncreated  so  to 
speak,  as  still  destitute  of  his 
true  spiritual  and  Divinely-given 
form  ;  and  has  no  more  relevan- 
cy to  his  perfected  development 
than  the  umbilical  cord  of  the 
foetus  has  to  the  memory  of  the 
full-grown  man. 


444         Science  is  but  a  Bridge  between 

But  if  Religion  be  incapable  of  hinting  a 
philosophy  of  Nature,  science  labors  under  a 
greater  disability  even.  For  science  has  had  a 
purely  negative  function  with  respect  to  relig- 
ion ;  and  it  is  only  by  sheer  self-conceit  on  her 
part  or  a  gross  misconception  of  her  proper  sub- 
ordination to  Philosophy,  that  she  is  ever  tempt- 
ed to  reconstruct  the  ancient  faiths  by  giving 
them  a  rational  basis.  Her  whole  business  on 
earth,  or  in  the  evolution  of  the  human  mind, 
may  be  thus  formulated :  the  gradual  exhaus- 
tion or  draining  off  of  religion  as  a  doctrine 
of  Nature,  in  order  to  its  permanent  resuscita- 
tion by  Philosophy  as  a  life  of  Man.  In  other 
words  the  church  as  it  has  hitherto  existed  in 
purely  typical  or  isolated  institutional  form,  will 
disappear  in  the  progress  of  our  scientific  cul- 
ture, only  to  reappear  as  a  perfect  human  society 
or  fellowship,  animated  and  held  together  by  no 
doctrinal  consensus  of  any  sort  on  the  part  of  its 
members,  but  by  their  cordial  unforced  and  filial 
acknowledgment  of  the  Divine  Name  as  alone 
adequate  to  explain  the  stupendous  marvel  and 
mystery  of  Life.  The  office  of  Science  accord- 
ingly in  this  great  work  of  social  reconstruction, 
is  that  purely  of  a  pioneer  clearing  the  ground 
of  the  wild  undergrowths  of  sense,  or  turning  it 
up  to  the  influence  of  light  and  air,  and  so  pre- 
paring it  for  the  endless  beneficent  inseminations 
of  Philosophy.  Men  of  science  constitute  the 
corps  of  sappers  and  miners,  who  with  glittering 
axe  on  shoulder  and  stout  leathern  apron  before 
them,  precede  the  advance   of  the  grand  army 


Religion  and  Philosophy.  445 

of  humanity,  to  batter  down  every  fortress  of 
organized  error,  bridge  over  every  ditch  of  su- 
perstition, and  drain  off  every  marsh  of  conven- 
tional prejudice,  which  threatens  to  impede  its 
victorious  footsteps. 

Thus  the  office  of  science  in  our  philosophic 
renovation,  though  most  honest  and  indispensa- 
ble, is  yet  plainly  negative  not  positive.  Her 
whole  business  is  to  undo  the  shackles  which 
sense  imposes  upon  the  religious  instinct:  so 
leaving  it  eternally  free  to  soar  according  to  its 
inmost  spiritual  aptitudes :  by  no  means  to  re- 
place them  with  the  far  weightier  because  infinite- 
ly more  impertinent  fetters  imposed  by  reason. 
For  if  the  forms  of  Nature  do  not  and  cannot 
exist  of  their  own  right,  and  yet  do  actually 
exist  in  universal  measure,  it  is  clear  that  the 
secret  of  their  origin  is  quite  as  impenetrable  to 
Science  as  to  faith,  to  Reason  as  to  sense,  and 
must  even  more  hopelessly  elude  those  who  con- 
fide in  her  conceited  oracles  :  for  he  is  far  like- 
lier to  prove  a  wise  man  in  the  long  run,  whose 
negations  are  fed  by  his  beliefs,  than  he  whose 
beliefs  are  starved  upon  his  negations.  The 
truth  is  that  Nature  owes  her  origin  exclusively 
to  the  proper  infinitude  of  God's  love  as  that 
love  is  displayed  in  Man  :  and  Science  dealing 
only  with  the  finite  and  relative,  willingly  aban- 
dons to  Philosophy  the  task  of  avouching  the 
Infinite  and  Absolute. 

Such  is  the  exact  formula  of  our  mental  evo- 
lution as  a  race:  Religion,  Science,  Philosophy. 
These  are  so  many  comprehensive  symbols   to 


44^         Formula  of  our  Mental  History: 

our  intelligence  of  the  gradual  development  of 
the  human  form  in  creation;  of  the  orderly  and 
complete  extrication  of  the  human  mind  from 
the  bondage  of  nature  and  the  tyranny  of  cus- 
tom. They  mark  so  many  successive  stages  of 
our  gradual  formation  or  redemption  out  of  the 
utter  vacuity  and  imbecility  which  wt  have  in 
ourselves  or  naturally,  into  the  perfectness  of 
knowledge  goodness  and  power  which  we  have 
in  God,  or  spiritually  :  first  the  hlade^  then  the 
ear,  and  afterwards  the  full  corn  in  the  ear.  Our 
intelligence  begins  in  sense  ;  because  being  crea- 
tures—  that  is,  being  destitute  of  life  in  our- 
selves—  we  cannot  possibly  have  any  intuition 
of  life,  but  must  be  gradually  educated  to  its 
perception.  Our  grasp  of  it  can  never  be  abso- 
lute, but  is  always  and  of  necessity  empirical. 
Consciousness  always  identifies  us  with  the  out- 
ward and  finite  ;  unless  therefore  the  infinite  and 
eternal  life  we  have  in  God  actualize  itself  to 
our  consciousness,  by  coming  down  to  our  very 
senses,  it  can  never  be  appropriated  by  us ;  and 
thus  might  better  have  remained  unheard  of. 
The  highest  truths  of  the  mind,  which  are  those 
of  the  Divine  infinity,  eternity,  and  omnipotence, 
are  bound  first  of  all  to  seek  and  find  ratification 
in  the  lowest  plane  of  the  mind,  which  is  sense, 
under  penalty  of  being  excluded  from  the  men- 
tal circulation  altogether,  or  confessing  them- 
selves no  organic  parts  of  the  mind.  The 
dogmas  of  a  purely  literal  or  physical  creation 
redemption  and  providence,  house  these  great 
spiritual  substances  until  the  race  is  sufficiently 


Religion,  Science,  Philosophy.  447 

quickened  to  discern  them  in  their  own  lustre  : 
so  that  unless  our  intelligence  had  had  a  prelimi- 
nary initiation  into  the  mysteries  of  wisdom  by 
this  rude  cradling,  it  would  have  remained  for- 
ever incapable  of  the  slightest  spiritual  appre- 
hension. In  a  word  the  very  inmost  and  most 
celestial  heights  of  experience  in  man  grow  out 
of,  and  are  irreversibly  tethered  to,  his  lowest  / 
sensuous  consciousness.^ 

In  themselves  however  these  literal  dogmas 
are  nothing  more  than  a  cradle  for  the  intellect, 
or  constitute  a  purely  initiatory  form  of  mental 
development,  since  they  all  proceed  upon  the 
postulate  of  a  strictly  physical  creation,  and  re- 
gard Nature  herself  as  the  proper  image  of  God. 
In  this  state  of  things  God  is  of  course  practi- 
cally conceived  of  as  the  most  finite  of  beings ; 
/.  e.  as  involving  the  most  of  space  and  time  in 
his  existence  :  thus  as  a  being  of  boundless 
physical  dimensions,  of  transcendent  material 
substance  and  majesty :  all  the  visible  types  of 
nature  lending  themselves  with  equal  alacrity 
to  avouch  His  qualities.  The  fury  of  the  tiger, 
the  gentleness  of  the  lamb;  the  subtlety  of  the 
serpent,  the  innocence  of  the  dove;  the  splen- 
dors of  light,  the  terrors  of  darkness  ;  seed-time 
and  harvest,  summer  and  winter,  the  cradle  and 
the  grave,  the  fruitful  field  and  the  barren  waste, 

1  The  highest  seraph  accord-  some  gross  enveloping  cuticle  in 

ingly,   whatever  be   the  miracle  which  he  and  the  clod  are  equal- 

of  his  endowments,  must  always  ly  at  home :  joint  pensioners  of 

exhibit    some    point    of    contact  the  same  impartial  bounty,  chil- 

and   sympathy    with    the   lowest  dren  of  the  same  exuberant  and 

clod  :  must  always  acknowledge  indiscriminate  magnanimity. 


44^  Natural  Religion  is  bound 

the  modest  valley  and  the  frowning  mountain, 
the  devouring  fire  and  the  vivifying  heat,  the 
gentle  rains  and  the  devastating  floods,  all  alike 
furnish  apt  indisputable  emblems  of  the  Divine 
sovereignty,  and  suggest  by  turns  to  the  devout 
imagination  the  wildest  hopes  of  His  personal 
goodness,  or  the  most  frenzied  fear  of  His  per- 
sonal malignity.  Natural  religion  is  thus  the 
citadel  of  superstition.  It  is  the  acknowledg- 
ment of  a  power  in  Nature  superior  to  nature, 
yet  spiritually  commensurate  with  all  her  pro- 
cesses and  productions.  It  makes  Nature  the 
adequate  temple  of  God,  and  bids  us  expand 
before  His  benignity  in  the  sunshine,  or  cower 
before  His  malignity  in  the  tempest.  In  short 
it  affirms  the  absoluteness  of  Nature;  her  literal 
sacredness  as  a  Divine  revelation  ;  and  conse- 
quently wherever  its  influence  is  unimpeded  by 
a  scientific  reaction  of  the  faculties,  or  a  salutary 
scepticism  of  the  intellect,  it  plunges  its  votary 
into  grovelling  fetichism  ;  making  him  worship 
a  literal  Divine  good  in  the  lasciviousness  of  the 
bull,  a  literal  Divine  truth  in  the  venom  of  the 
snake.  Were  not  science  at  hand  accordingly 
to  relieve  the  deadly  blight  thus  operated  by  re- 
ligion upon  the  faculties,  and  so  prepare  the  way 
to  a  philosophic  recognition  of  creation,  the  in- 
tellect would  expire  of  inanition,  and  human  life 
die  out  in  despair. 

We  may  say  then  that  Natural  religion  — 
which  is  the  acknowledgment  of  a  Divine 
power  immediately  present  in  Nature,  and  di- 
rectly operating  her  effects  —  is  bound  as    the 


to  give  way  to  Science,  449 

intellect  of  the  race  matures  to  give  way  to  sci- 
ence, which  declares  that  God  is  present  in  Na- 
ture only  mediately,  or  operates  her  effects  solely 
through  the  instrumentality  of  man. 

For  erelong  the  contents  of  the  senses  become 
sifted,  and  the  intuitions  of  the  individual  reason 
give  place  to  the  sober  and  orderly  methods  of 
science,  or  associated  observation.  Light  be- 
comes gradually  divided  from  dark  in  knowl- 
edge, good  from  evil,  substance  from  shadow, 
reality  from  appearance,  truth  from  fact.  And 
it  is  precisely  in  this  critical  or  sceptical  power 
of  the  mind  that  science  consists.  At  her  fullest 
she  is  a  mere  disintegration  of  natural  religion, 
or  what  is  the  same  thing,  a  remorseless  refuta- 
tion of  Nature's  absoluteness  in  the  interests  of 
human  freedom.  And  the  method  she  takes 
therefore  from  her  very  inception,  is,  to  exhaust 
Nature  of  personality  or  life  by  proving  her 
rigid  subjection  to  law;  that  is,  demonstrating 
the  universality  of  cause.  She  gradually  demon- 
strates the  pure  relativity  or  rationality  of  all 
natural  forms ;  so  denuding  them  of  that  abso- 
lute prestige  which  they  wear  to  sense,  and 
which  alone  justifies  the  ascription  of  a  Divine 
authority  to  them.  Nature  is  now  discovered 
to  be  far  more  potent  to  the  imagination  in  gross 
than  in  detail,  being  totally  unable  to  vindicate 
to  the  analytic  reason  the  overpowering  attitude 
she  puts  on  to  sense,  or  the  carnal  reason.  In 
short,  the  senses  are  now  seen  to  be  hopelessly 
superstitious ;  so  that  science,  in  place  of  affirm- 
ing their  testimony,  is  bound  as  she  grows  more 
29 


45°  Bu/  Science  herself  has  no 

familiar  with  existing  order,  incessantly  to  re- 
prove and  correct  it.  Thus  the  ruby,  the  rose, 
the  horse,  the  grass,  the  water,  when  privately 
interrogated,  or  viewed  apart  from  the  over- 
whelming natural  identity  to  which  each  in  its 
degree  contributes,  confess  themselves  lacking 
in  that  strictly  moral  or  individual  force  of  which 
Science  is  in  quest  under  all  her  researches,  and 
which  she  regards  as  the  highest  or  absolute 
form  of  natural  existence.  They  one  and  all 
proclaim  themselves  forms  of  use  not  of  life  ; 
phenomenal  forms  not  substantial  ones ;  forms 
of  servitude  in  truth  not  of  freedom;  and  hence 
however  imposing  they  may  be  to  sense,  they 
instantly  lay  off  all  prestige  of  Divinity  to  the 
reason. 

Thus  science  renders  the  great  intellectual 
transition  between  Religion  and  Philosophy 
possible,  by  gradually  refuting  the  sensuous 
judgments  of  the  mind  in  regard  to  creation, 
or  proving  them  superstitious.  It  gradually 
divests  Nature  of  the  rigidly  fixed  or  finite 
character  which  sense  ascribes  to  her,  and  in- 
vests her  with  a  supremely  rational  or  orderly 
significance.  Sense  takes  for  granted  the  essen- 
tial finiteness  of  all  existence.  It  supposes  the 
horse  to  be  the  horse  in  himself,  and  irrespec- 
tively of  his  relations  to  other  existence  ;  the 
sheep  the  sheep,  and  the  rose  the  rose,  in  them- 
selves and  without  reference  to  the  relation  of 
unity  they  bear  to  the  rest  of  Nature  :  it  sup- 
poses that  pleasure  is  pleasure  in  itself  and  irre- 
spectively of  pain,  light   light  irrespectively  of 


Vretension  to  Finality.  451 

dark,  bitter  bitter  irrespectively  of  sweet,  good 
good  irrespectively  of  evil,  high  high  irrespec- 
tively of  low,  and  so  forth  :  so  that  Natural 
Religion  which  is  the  child  of  sense  by  Faith, 
in  order  to  conceive  of  Divine  things  has  only 
to  intensify  these  finite  existences  indefinitely. 
Reason  however  antagonizes  sense.  It  denies 
the  essential  finiteness  of  natural  existence,  by 
affirming  its  strictly  rational  character;  inasmuch 
as  everything  that  exists  does  so  only  by  virtue 
of  its  implication  in  other  things.  But  then, 
although  it  denies  finiteness  to  natural  things 
by  thus  endowing  them  with  an  exclusively 
relative  character,  it  goes  on  itself  to  make  this 
relative  character  of  all  existence  absolute  in 
God's  sight,  so  affirming  a  purely  rational  or 
moral  Deity.  Reason  conceives  that  the  differ- 
ence we  see  between  horse  and  rose,  between 
pebble  and  mountain,  between  high  and  low, 
light  and  dark,  good  and  evil,  bitter  and  sweet, 
painful  and  pleasant,  are  absolute  differences, 
characterizing  God's  vision  as  well  as  ours.  It 
consequently  reorganizes  religion  upon  a  purely 
rational  basis  ;  making  it  reflect  no  longer  the 
wholly  arbitrary  natural  divisions  which  sense 
alleges  between  opposing  families  and  races  of 
men,  but  those  subtler  personal  or  relative  dif- 
ferences which  exalt  one  man  above  another, 
and  which  imply  the  greatest  possible  indi- 
vidual merit  and  demerit  in  the  Divine  sight. 
If  science  consequently  had  the  least  legiti- 
mate pretension  to  furnish  the  final  evolution 
of  the   mind,    or,    what    is    the    same    thing,    if 


452  She  is  nothing  more  than 

reason  should  constitute  the  true  basis  of  inter- 
course between  God  and  man,  hope  would  be 
limited  in  the  human  bosom  to  the  lowest  or 
most  conceited  persons  ;  /.  e.  to  such  as  could 
most  easily  assure  themselves  of  their  own 
superior  merit  to  others;  while  despair  would 
be  the  lot  of  all  those  whose  natural  modesty, 
or  cultivated  sweetness,  might  lead  them  to 
prefer  others  to  themselves.  A  scientific  re- 
ligion indeed,  that  is  to  say,  a  religion  which 
claims  exclusively  rational  sanctions,  is  a  philo- 
sophic absurdity.  It  may  be  tolerated  as  a 
criticism  upon  established  superstition  ;  but 
it  will  never  succeed  in  enlisting  the  disinter- 
ested respect,  much  less  the  enthusiasm,  of  its 
followers ;  because  it  subjects  the  heart  to  the 
inspiration  of  the  head,  and  makes  worship  a 
prompting  of  duty  rather  than  affection;  an 
affair  of  the  lips  and  not  of  the  life. 

Science  is  thus  —  although  she  herself  does 
not  suspect  the  fact,  and  is  consequently  very 
nearly  as  arrogant  and  absolute  in  her  pre- 
tensions, as  Religion  had  previously  been  in 
hers  —  is  thus  nothing  more  than  an  indispens- 
able middle-term  between  Religion  and  Phi- 
losophy :  being  negatively  related  to  the  for- 
mer interest,  and  positively  related  to  the  latter. 
Religion  accounts  for  creation  by  a  simple 
hypothesis,  the  lawless  character  of  the  Divine 
will :  it  makes  creation  a  mere  passive  or  brute 
display  of  Divine  force.  Philosophy  exacts  a 
composite  hypothesis  to  explain  it.  It  makes 
creation  a  strict    ratio    or    mean    between    two 


a  Handmaid  to  Philosophy.  4^3 

extremes,  or  alleges  the  indissoluble  unity  of 
infinite  and  finite  in  every  fact  of  existence. 
Science  accordingly,  as  the  bridge  of  transition 
from  one  to  the  other,  is  bound,  first,  to  chase 
God  out  of  Nature  (so  relating  herself  nega- 
tively to  Religion)  by,  secondly,  bringing  Na- 
ture itself  within  man,  (so  relating  herself 
positively  to  Philosophy).  For  Philosophy 
considered  as  the  culmination  of  our  intellect- 
ual progress  means  the  conversion  into  life  of 
whatsoever  has  hitherto  been  merely  doctrine ; 
thus  it  implies  the  decease  of  religion  in  natu- 
ral form  and  its  revival  in  spiritual  form  ex- 
clusively; or  its  disappearance  as  a  truth  of 
nature  and  its  subsequent  and  sole  worthy  res- 
urrection as  a  life  of  man.  Philosophy  is  a 
demonstration  of  the  Infinite  within  the  finite, 
of  the  Absolute  within  the  relative ;  but  this 
demonstration  will  be  perfect  of  course,  only 
in  so  far  as  the  finite  and  relative  have  been 
previously  ascertained  by  an  analysis  of  Nature 
so  thorough  and  unsparing,  as  shall  forever  sup- 
press all  doubt  upon  the  subject.  Now  science 
is  the  instrument  of  this  analysis.  Its  most 
concise  and  most  comprehensive  definition  is 
the  research  of  the  Relative  within  the  Finite. 
It  is  the  child  of  Natural  Religion,  and  comes 
into  the  world  hearing  its  parent  say,  God  cre- 
ates all  things :  an  infinite  presence  subtends 
all  the  facts  of  Nature.  With  no  misgiving 
Science  sets  out  upon  the  search  after  this  re- 
puted infinite  whom  all  nature  attests,  but  finds 
it  nowhere.     Nature  exhibits  absolutely  no  trace 


454  Philosophy  alone  has  Power 

of  it  whatsoever.  On  the  contrary  the  footsteps 
of  the  Finite  abound  everywhere  excluding  the 
infinite  ;  and  to  trace  these  footsteps  home  soon 
becomes  the  sole  solicitude  of  science.  This 
home  is  found  only  in  moral  existence,  that  is 
in  man.  The  human  form  sums  up  all  the 
relativity  of  nature  ;  exhibits  the  unity  of  all 
her  opposites;  moral  existence  being  the  only 
truly  rational  or  unitary  form  of  existence  sci- 
ence is  able  to  discover.  What  science  sees 
in  nature  accordingly  is  never  God  but  man; 
that  is  to  say,  it  decrees  the  universality  of  law 
or  order  throughout  the  entire  realm  of  finite 
life,  and  the  consequent  exclusion  of  the  infinite; 
thus  making  it  incumbent  upon  Philosophy  to 
give  the  religious  instinct  a  higher  intellectual 
evolution,  or  else  leave  it  barren  forever. 

Philosophy  accordingly  stands  ready  when 
science  has  finished  her  critical  or  negative 
function,  to  assume  the  positive  office  to  which 
the  latter  has  proved  herself  plainly  incompe- 
tent, that,  namely  of  reconstructing  religion,  or 
putting  it  on  a  permanent  because  living  basis. 
Philosophy  denies  the  absoluteness  which  sci- 
ence under  the  guidance  of  reason  ascribes  to 
personal  existence,  by  resolving  the  personally 
good  and  personally  evil  man  quite  equally 
into  a  higher  aesthetic  unity,  consummate  fruit 
of  the  Divine  operation  in  human  nature  :  so 
vacating  the  only  imaginable  ground  of  a  sci- 
entific religion.  For  if  persons  be  not  absolute : 
if!,  as  Philosophy  affirms,  the  personally  good 
man   is  not  really  but  only  apparently  good   of 


livingly  to  reinstate  Religion.  455 

himself,  and  the  personally  evil  man  only  appar- 
ently and  not  really  evil  of  himself — both  the 
good  of  the  one  and  the  evil  of  the  other  re- 
ferring themselves  wholly  to  the  contrasted  rela- 
tion in  which  they  severally  stand  towards  a 
third  or  superior  neutral  and  unitary  form  of 
manhood  —  then  clearly  no  merit  can  attach  to 
the  one  in  the  Divine  sight  and  no  demerit  to 
the  other;  and  the  responsibility  which  reason 
ascribes  to  them,  instead  of  being  absolute,  turns 
out  a  mere  provisional  necessity  of  our  imper- 
fect social  development.  Thus  it  is  only  as  we 
become  socially  and  aesthetically  posited  that  we 
exhibit,  according  to  Philosophy,  that  perfect 
fusion  or  marriage  of  good  and  evil  in  a  new  and 
Divinely-given  personality  which  is  absolutely 
our  own,  and  which  therefore  becomes  an  all- 
sufficient  basis  for  any  amount  of  spiritual  inter- 
course and  sympathy  between  us  and  our  Ma- 
ker. 

Human  history  then  has  preeminently  a  sub- 
jective significance ;  has  primarily  a  formative 
scope  and  intention.  Its  purpose  is  to  bring 
man  to  a  proper  acquaintance  with  himself,  and 
so  to  induct  him  into  a  true  knowledge  of  God ; 
to  make  us  conscious  in  the  first  place  of  the 
divinity  which  is  astir  in  our  own  nature,  and 
then  and  thereby  make  us  capable  of  recogniz- 
ing God  as  He  is  in  Himself  Now  religion 
which  is  the  instinctual  essor  of  our  perfected 
intelligence,  the  earliest  or  nascent  stage  of  our 
mental  history,  is  the  heart  of  the  mind,  and 
holds  its  head  and  feet,  or  the  two  factors  of  our 


45^  Religion  is  the  Heart  — 

perfected  consciousness,  God  and  Nature,  in 
chaotic  solution  :  only  because  the  subsequent 
scientific  extrication  of  these  latent  quantities 
from  each  other's  grasp,  and  their  eventual  phil- 
osophic reconciliation  in  a  new  and  unitary 
form  of  life,  are  precisely  what  will  constitute 
the  entire  mental  growth  of  the  race,  the  sum 
total  of  its  intellectual  consciousness.  Religion 
confounds  infinite  with  finite,  God  with  nature, 
spiritual  with  carnal,  only  for  our  sake,  or  be- 
cause the  gradual  scientific  disentanglement  and 
subsequent  philosophic  distribution  of  these  quan- 
tities in  a  living  or  harmonic  consciousness,  are 
what  will  constitute  our  complete  spiritual  crea- 
tion. Thus  even  as  the  kingly  oak  is  wrapped 
up  in  the  humble  acorn  upon  which  the  swine 
feed  and  are  fattened,  the  endless  intellectual 
development  of  man  is  all  contained  by  antici- 
pation in  the  bosom  of  his  most  sensuous  Faith ; 
in  those  most  rude  and  crude  and  general  dog- 
mas of  a  literal  Divine  creation  redemption  and 
providence  which  constitute  not  only  the  best 
theology,  but  for  a  long  time  also  the  only  sci- 
ence of  the  race.  The  very  possibility  of  intel- 
lect would  have  been  defeated,  unless  the  mind 
had  been  husked  in  this  primitive  dogmatic 
drapery  :  unless  every  interest  of  its  eventual 
majestic  unity  had  been  previously  met  and 
formulated  —  had  been  previously  gathered  up 
and  stored  away,  so  to  speak  —  in  these  rude 
germs,  these  tough  theologico-scientific  roots,  of 
a  literal  or  physical  Creation,  Fall,  and  Redemp- 
tion,   of  man:    the    first   term   vindicating   the 


Science^  the  Lungs  —  of  the  Mind.       457 

infinite  paternal  element  in  our  consciousness, 
God ;  the  second,  the  finite  maternal  element. 
Nature  ;  the  third,  that  perfect  eventual  recon- 
ciliation which  these  antagonist  elements  are 
to  undergo  in  the  Divine  Natural  Man,  or  the 
bosom  of  our  perfected  consciousness.  Inteljeej;: 
altogether  consists  in  the  ability  to  sepafate  what 
ig"superior  m  knowlecige~from  what  is  inferior  : 
wTiat  IS  "rightfully  prior  and  commandmg,  from 
what  is  rightfully  posterior  and  subordmate:  and 
i'T^cordingly  such  separation  had  taken  place 
without  our  scientific  privity,  or  in  advance  of 
our  intellectual  consciousness,  we  should  obvi- 
ously have  lacked  all  mental  fecundation,  have 
remained  forever  void  of  intellect,  cut  off  from 
the  pith  and  marrow  of  our  rational  personal- 

The  evolution  of  science  succeeds  that  of  re- 
ligionj_Decause  science  tumishes_the_necessary 
body  to  the  mind,  the  indispensable  mother- 
earth_jjpon  which  its  feet  are  planted  ;  while 
religion  constitutes  its  animating  soul,  the  ca- 
ressing atmospheric  heavens  which  encircle  its 
head.^  Science  is  the  research  of  organized  or 
relative  existence  ;  and  her  empire  consequently 
includes  within  itself  the  entire  realm  of  the 
outward  and  finite,  whatever  is  embraced  in  the 
universe  of  sense.  As_w£__haye^ called  religion^ 
the  heart  of  the  mind,  we  maycaTl'  scTe'nce  its 
lungs  ;~!Ter  function  being  to  separate  what  is 
"private,  spiritual,  infinite  in  knowledge,  or  the 
mental  circulation,  from  what  is  public,  material, 

1  See  Appendix,  Note  H. 


458  Science  purges  Religion 

finite  :  so  preparing  the  former  for  that  practical 
supremacy  which  is  to  accrue  to  it  under  the 
regime  of  Philosophy.  Science  arterializes  the 
blood  of  the  mind,  which  is  knowledge,  by  di- 
vesting it  of  the  deciduous  attributes  it  gathers 
from  sense.  Her  office  is  to  spiritualize  or  fresh- 
en the  m'ental  circulation,  by  exalting  its  venous 
blood,  which  is  sensible  experience,  into  arterial 
blood,  which  is  rational  belief  Sense  exhibits 
life  to  us  so  stripped  of  its  rightful  infinitude,  so 
drenched  of  its  essential  divinity,  as  to  make  it 
very  nearly  vapid  and  worthless.  It  holds  soul 
and  body,  substance  and  form,  spiritual  and  ma- 
terial, in  such  inverted  relation,  as  to  give  the 
lower  element  immense  advantage  over  the  high- 
er ;  as  practically  to  aggrandize  it  indeed  beyond 
measure,  and  give  it  infinitude.  Nature  is  not 
God's  true  creature,  which  is  Man,  but  only  the 
mould  of  that  creature.  Accordingly  if  the 
physical  element  in  consciousness,  the  element 
of  identity,  should  permanently  dominate  the 
spiritual  element,  its  element  of  individuality,  it 
would  in  the  end  altogether  consume  and  oblit- 
erate it.  Science  obviates  this  fatality  by  shift- 
ing knowledge  from  a  sensuous  to  a  rational 
basis,  in  demonstrating  that  creation  is  not  a 
product  of  blind  force,  or  arbitrary  will,  but  of 
consummate  order  or  law.  If  science  did  not 
thus  assiduously  purge  the  mental  induction  of 
the  impurities  it  gathers  from  sense,  all  these 
vicious  things  must  be  incessantly  restored  to 
the  circulation,  not  to  impart  health  and  joy  and 
peace  to  the  mind,  but  ever-growing  irritation, 


of  its  Sensuous  Sedment.  45*9 

disease,  and  death.  Science  accordingly  elimi- 
nates from  knowledge  this  sensual  sediment,  this 
garbage  of  the  gutters,  which  it  derives  from 
our  spiritual  immaturity,  in  order  that  being 
thus  aerated  and  defecated  it  may  no  longer  pull 
down  and  destroy  the  mind,  but  renew  it  with 
immortal  youth.  In  short  her  whole  business  is 
to  convert  sensible  knowledge  into  rational  be- 
lief, facts  of  sense  into  truths  of  reason,  and  so 
keep  unimpaired  that  discrimination  of  high 
from  low,  of  heaven  from  earth,  of  God  from 
nature,  upon  which  the  reconciling  mission  of 
Philosophy  is  absolutely  contingent. 

Philosophy  is  the  completed  or  living  form 
of  the  mind,  its  presiding  cerebral  unity,  its  ner- 
vous quickening  spirit,  which  perpetually  em- 
powers both  heart  and  lungs,  and  compels  them 
into  her  own  strictest  allegiance.  Our  true 
life  or  consciousness  lies  in  the  perfect  union  of 
infinite  and  finite.  It  Is  the  marriage-fusion  or 
unity  of  elements  which,  in  themselves  or  intrin- 
sically, are  so  discordant  and  unequal,  as  to  be 
incapable  of  combining  directly,  and  are  conse- 
quently held  together  only  under  the  coercion 
of  some  third  or  neutral  power.^  Philosophy, 
then,  as  representing  our  consummate  intellect- 

'  True   or    spiritual    marriage  the    wife.     If   the   parties    to    a 

never  takes  place  between  equals,  marriage    were     strictly    equal, 

but   on  the   contrary  always    al-  /'.  c.   unisexual,    there  would    be 

leges  a  hierarchical   distribution  no  prolification  :  because  prolifi- 

cf  the  parties   to   it,   such   as  is  cation  implies  not  the  equilibri- 

imaged    in    the    Atomic    theory,  um  of  its  constitutive  elements, 

and  is  legalized  in  the  institution  but  their  most  intimate  and  vital 

of    civil   marriage,   which    gives  fusion, 
the    husband    social    priority    to 


460       Philosophy  the  Brain  of  the  Mind. 

ual  development,  our  complete  mental  unity  or 
personality,  has  it  for  her  exclusive  business  to 
coordinate  these  conflicting  elements,  or  har- 
monize Religion  and  Science,  God  and  Nature. 
This  she  does  by  sublimating  religion  or  giving 
it  infinitude,  as  having  exclusive  reference  to 
what  is  spiritual  in  life,  or  regulating  the  rela- 
tions of  the  individual  soul  to  God ;  and  by 
precipitating  science,  or  giving  it  bounds,  by 
relegating  it  exclusively  to  the  care  of  our 
social  interests,  or  those  relations  between  man 
and  man,  and  man  and  nature,  which  alone 
express,  alone  embody,  and  alone  empower,  the 
relation  of  the  individual  soul  to  God.  Phi- 
losophy is  thus  that  veritable  firmament  or  ex- 
panse in  the  midst  of  the  waters,  which  separates 
the  waters  that  are  under  the  firmament  from  the 
waters  that  are  above  the  firmament.  Unless 
this  separation  had  taken  place :  unless  religion, 
which  is  the  doctrine  of  God  in  Nature,  and 
science  which  is  the  doctrine  of  Man  in  Nature, 
had  been  first  perfectly  discriminated  and  then 
perfectly  reconciled  in  Philosophy,  which  is  the 
doctrine  of  the  God-man  or  of  infinite  and  finite 
in  complete  union,  we  should  either  have  been 
forever  void  of  intellectual  consciousness,  and 
remained  the  filthiest  of  filthy  aborigines  to  the 
end  of  the  chapter;  or  else  have  become  so  in- 
flated with  the  pride  of  a  superficial  intelligence, 
as  to  lose  erelong  the  tradition  of  a  common 
human  heart. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

But  we  must  hurry  to  a  close. 

The  abstract  formula  of  our  mental  growth 
as  a  race,  which  we  have  just  been  considering, 
namely :  Religion,  Science,  Philosophy  :  would 
be  worthless,  if  it  did  not  translate  itself  into 
the  facts  of  our  visible  experience,  or  authenti- 
cate itself  by  every  actual  detail  of  human  his- 
tory. What  we  call  history  is  only  an  instinctive 
effort  of  the  common  or  associated  mind  of  the 
race,  to  put  on  form,  to  come  to  self-conscious- 
ness, to  realize  its  own  majestic  unity,  by  means 
of  the  purchase  afforded  it  in  the  experience  of 
the  individual  bosom.  And  as  this  great  ten- 
dency formulates  itself  to  our  apprehension  in 
the  three  intellectual  symbols  just  cited,  so  of 
course  history  as  the  expression  of  such  ten- 
dency, as  the  product  of  this  interior  mental 
evolution,  must  exhibit  a  form  in  exact  corre- 
spondence with  them. 

In  point  of  fact  this  is  what  history  does. 
History  is  all  summed  up  in  the  three  great 
interests  of  Church,  State,  and  Society;  or  the 
ecclesiastical,  the  political,  and  the  social  life  of 
man  :  the  first  representing  his  barbaric  aspect,  his 
religious  consciousness,  which  posits  him  as  a 
proper  subject  of  nature,   full  of  essential   ego- 


462      History  sutmned  up  in  the  Interests 

tism  and  rapacity,  and  therefore  at  an  infinite 
remove  from  God ;  the  second  representing  his 
civic  aspect,  or  his  rational  mind,  which  posits 
him  as  a  moral  subject  under  law  to  his  fellow- 
man  in  consequence  of  such  egotism  and  rapac- 
ity;  the  third  alone  representing  his  truly  human 
aspect,  or  his  perfected  philosophic  conscious- 
ness, which  posits  him  as  a  member  of  a  perfect 
society  or  brotherhood,  and  hence  emancipates 
him  from  any  obliged  allegiance  either  to  church 
or  state,  by  putting  him  in  the  frankest  practical 
amity,  in  the  intensest  living  or  spiritual  unity, 
with  God  and  his  fellow-man. 

In  other  words  the  entire  machinery  of  man's 
destiny  on  earth,  consists  in  that  well-known  du- 
plex movement  of  the  Divine  Providence  which 
we  summarily  denominate  church  and  state  or 
religion  and  politics:  the  former  a  descending  or 
centrifugal  movement,  the  latter  an  ascending  or 
centripetal  one;  the  one  giving  us  death,  the 
other  affording  us  a  quasi  or  temporary  redemp-- 
tion  from  it :  but  both  alike  tending  permanent- 
ly and  irresistibly  to  generate  and  coalesce  in  a 
third  or  orbicular  movement  which  we  call  so- 
ciety, and  which  glorifies  them  both  beyond 
their  heart's  desire,  because  it  carries  them  both 
out  infinitely  beyond  their  individual  promise 
or  aspiration.  The  Church  stamps  man  as  nat- 
urally corrupt  and  infirm  by  virtue  of  his  finite 
constitution  ;  the  State  thereupon  subjects  him 
to  personal  discipline  and  correction,  by  virtue 
of  his  rational  consciousness :  Society  alone  pre- 
sents him  absolved  alike  from  natural  infirmity, 


of  Churchy  State,  and  Society.  463 

and  moral  reproach,  by  the  joint  unstinted  fel- 
lowship of  God  and  his  kind.  History  we  may 
say  then  is  the  skin  of  the  mind,  its  ultimate  tis- 
sue or  common  covering,  binding  in  one  its  sev- 
eral viscera  of  heart,  lungs,  and  brain :  Church, 
State,  and  Society  being  the  outward  forms 
under  which  this  great  unseen  trinity  of  powers 
stand  cloaked  and  represented. 

History,  it  is  evident,  owes  its  supernatural 
character,  its  controlling  power  over  Nature  — 
whatsoever  distinguishes  it  from  mere  natural 
growth  and  decay  —  in  a  word  owes  its  strictly 
human  and  progressive  quality,  to  the  truth  of 
man's  most  unequal  parentage  :  to  the  fact  of  his 
being  the  joint  and  equal  offspring  of  an  infinite 
father  (God),  and  a  finite  mother  (Nature).  One 
sees  at  a  glance  that  an  infinite  thesis  and  a  finite 
antithesis  entail  a  wholly  unexampled  synthesis  ; 
and  man's  destiny  accordingly  is  never  to  be 
gauged  by  stupidly  nor  yet  conceitedly  ignoring 
its  major  premise :  which  nevertheless  is  what  re- 
ligion and  science  habitually  do.  The  truest  and 
most  comprehensive  formula  of  History  is,  that 
it  is  the  persistent  and  at  last  successful  effort  of 
the  paternal  Divine  element  in  consciousness  to 
assert  its  essential  primacy,  and  reduce  the  merely 
constitutive,  or  maternal  natural  element  to  its 
just  subordination.  History  exhibits  the  nat- 
ural, maternal,  or  constitutive  element  in  cre- 
ation, succumbing  and  giving  way  to  the 
demands  of  the  paternal  or  creative  element, 
to  such  an  extent  as  that  what  is  strictly  indi- 
vidual   and     human     in     life    becomes    finally 


464  Its  pra^ical  Scope  is  to  free 

extricated  from  the  grasp  of  what  is  common 
and  animal,  and  permanently  endowed  with  its 
more  or  less  complete  supremacy.  It  shows  us 
human  life  turning  out  a  ceaseless  process  of  elim- 
ination or  rejection,  by  which  every  trait  of  re- 
semblance to  the  infirm  natural  mould  becomes 
gradually  changed,  into  an  image  of  the  infi- 
nite spiritual  substance  from  which  both  mould 
and  form  proceed.  It  represents  the  evolution 
of  the  creature's  destiny,  or  his  natural  forma- 
tion in  the  Divine  image,  as  a  graduated  or 
composite  movement,  first  downward  or  radical, 
giving  him  fixity  by  developing  in  him  the  in- 
tensest  consciousness  of  community  with  his 
kind;  then  upward  or  educative,  giving  him 
the  utmost  spiritual  expansion  out  of  that  root. 
Our  natural  history  may  be  defined  in  fact  to  be  a 
pure  process  of  redemption,  or  spiritual  formation, 
consisting  first  in  giving  us  conscious  finite  ma- 
ternity, but  only  in  order  that  that  consciousness 
may  prove  rigidly  and  unalterably  ministerial  to 
our  conscious  infinite  paternity.  Hence  a  literal 
cosmogony  is  philosophically  bound,  in  order  to 
symbolize  and  vindicate  the  eternal  truth  of  cre- 
ation, to  present  it  in  this  strictly  orderly  aspect: 
that  is  to  say,  is  bound  in  the  first  place  to  posit 
an  all-enveloping  chaos  or  maternity ;  and  then 
to  exhibit  the  successive  extrication  of  the  true 
Divine  creature  from  this  carnal  confinement  or 
embodiment,  through  all  the  stages  of  mineral 
existence  or  body,  vegetable  growth  and  animal 
motion,  up  to  the  full  evolution  of  the  human 
form  in  which  creation  culminates  and  closes. 


Eve  from  the  Domination  of  Adam.      465" 

Thus  Nature  is  the  mother  of  the  creature, 
giving  him  requisite  finiteness  or  body ;  just  as 
the  marble  may  be  said  to  be  the  mother  of  the 
statue,  as  giving  it  visible  incorporation  or  fixity. 
But  what  would  you  think  of  a  statue  which  was 
conspicuous  chiefly  for  its  material,  or  for  the 
part  its  mother  played  in  it  ?  What  would 
your  estimate  of  the  statue  be,  if  the  substance 
out  of  which  it  was  fashioned  challenged  more 
attention  than  the  plastic  power  of  the  sculptor 
over  that  substance  ?  Would  you  not  at  once 
pronounce  it  faithless  to  the  fundamental  canon 
of  Art,  which  is  the  supremacy  of  form  to  sub- 
stance? Unquestionably.  For  Art  —  viewed 
as  the  distinctively  feminine  evolution  of  human 
activity,  in  which  freedom  supplants  force,  or 
what  is  spiritual,  individual,  private,  governs 
what  is  natural,  common,  public  —  makes  Na- 
ture as  furnishing  the  material  in  every  work, 
purely  ancillary  and  subservient  to  the  Artist  as 
furnishing  its  form,  under  penalty  of  defeating 
the  work  or  rendering  it  imperfect. 

Yet  precisely  this  is  the  fatuity  of  the  distinc- 
tively religious  mind,  that  it  allows  the  inferior 
physical  element  in  consciousness  to  dominate 
the  superior  psychical  element;  so  that  practi- 
cally the  influence  of  the  finite  mother  is  om- 
nipotent over  the  offspring,  while  that  of  the 
infinite  father  is  compelled  into  the  rudest  vassal- 
age. Religion,  and  our  ordinary  slipshod  science 
as  well,  habitually  interprets  my  spiritual  individ- 
uality by  my  natural  identity,  or  makes  my  soul 
to  derive  from  my  body;  just  as  if  you  should 


466         //  exalts  our  natural  Communism 

attribute  the  statue  to  the  marble  and  not  to  the 
sculptor.  Undoubtedly  the  marble  gives  sub- 
stance or  body  to  the  sculptor's  conception ;  but 
no  one  dreams  that  it  also  gives  form  or  soul 
to  that  conception.  On  the  contrary  it  is  ha- 
bitually pliant  to  the  sculptor's  demands,  and 
abjectly  receives  whatever  form  he  wishes  to 
impress  upon  it.  So  precisely  with  my  natural 
identity,  or  the  consciousness  I  derive  from  Na- 
ture. It  is  the  pliant  marble  merely  upon  which 
the  Divine  artist  stamps  the  image  of  His  spir- 
itual perfection.  It  gives  visible  body  to  the 
creative  conception,  but  it  no  more  animates  or 
gives  it  invisible  soul,  than  the  marble  animates 
the  statue.  I  may,  it  is  true,  be  physically  dis- 
eased to  the  extent  of  rendering  me  idiotic,  or 
defeating  my  spiritual  possibilities.  But  clearly 
this  is  not  the  rule.  The  rule  is  that  my  physi- 
cal constitution  serve  as  a  mere  pedestal  or  basis 
to  my  spiritual  enfranchisement ;  and  if  the  rule 
be  inoperative  in  any  case,  the  result  is  in  no 
way  attributable  to  Nature's  obduracy,  but  only 
to  that  contented  myopy  —  with  respect  to 
God's  presence  in  our  nature  —  into  which  un- 
happily we  are  all  more  or  less  betrayed  by  the 
prevalence  of  a  superstitious  faith  and  a  sceptical 
science. 

When  the  common  people  interpret  creation 
as  a  making  "  all  things  out  of  nothing,"  what 
is  their  meaning*?  I  do  not  ask  their  conscious 
meaning,  for  this  is  pretty  sure  to  be  wrong ; 
but  their  unconscious  meaning,  which  is  pretty 
sure  to  be  right.     They  mean  to  say  that  God 


into  the  intensest  Individuality.  467 

alone  gives  being  to  man  naturally  no  less  than 
spiritually :  that  the  very  nature  of  the  creature 
is  such  as  to  deny  him  being,  so  that  if  he  be 
created  at  all,  his  nature  itself  is  to  be  redeemed 
or  overcome  in  the  first  place.  The  nature  of 
the  creature  as  a  creature  is  not  to  be,  just  as 
that  of  the  creator  is  to  be :  so  that  so  far  as  his 
nature  is  concerned  he  is  absolutely  nothing : 
without  form  and  void  of  substance.  His  na- 
ture is  to  derive  all  his  being  from  another;  to 
be  absolutely  incapable  of  life  in  himself  If 
therefore  he  have  conscious  existence  or  self- 
hood, it  can  only  be  by  a  Divine  vivification  of 
his  nature,  operated  without  his  privity  or  con- 
cert, while  he  is  asleep,  as  the  scriptures  ex- 
press it.  "  By  the  deep  sleep  "  which  fell  upon 
Adam,  and  in  which  God  took  one  of  his  ribs 
and  built  it  into  a  woman,  is  signified,  says 
Swedenborg,  "  that  state  into  which  man  is  let 
so  that  he  may  appear  to  possess  selfhood :  which 
state  is  likened  to  sleep,  because  whilst  in  it  he 
knows  no  other  than  that  he  lives,  thinks,  speaks, 
and  acts  of  himself"^ 

"  It  is  believed,"  he  says  elsewhere,  "  by  al- 
most every  one  that  a  man  thinks  and  wills 
from  himself,  and  thence  speaks  and  acts  from 
himself  How  indeed  can  any  one  believe  oth- 
erwise, unless  he  be  enlightened,  when  the  ap- 
pearance of  his  doing  these  things  is  so  strong 
that  it  noway  differs  from  the  reality,  when  yet 
that  reality  is  impossible?  —  In  this  sense,  the 
sense  in  which  selfhood  is  commonly  understood 

1  Arc.  Cel.,  147. 


4-68  Man  by  Creation  perfectly 

(as  manifesting  an  inherent  faculty  of  willing 
and  thinking),  no  man  has  any  selfhood,"^ 

"  Man's  selfhood  is  indeed  a  mere  dead  noth* 
ing,  although  to  him  it  seems  a  something;  in 
fact  seems  everything.  Whatever  lives  in  man 
derives  from  the  Lord,  and  if  this  were  abstract- 
ed, he  would  drop  dead  as  a  stone  ;  for  man  is 
only  an  organ  receptive  of  life.  Real  selfhood 
belongs  to  the  Lord  alone ;  and  from  this  is  viv- 
ified the  selfhood  of  man."^ 

"  That  man's  selfhood  is  in  itself  dead,  or 
that  no  one  has  any  life  of  himself,  is  shown 
so  clearly  in  the  world  of  spirits,  that  evil  spir- 
its who  love  nothing  but  self,  and  obstinately 
insist  that  they  live  of  themselves,  are  convinced 
of  the  contrary  by  sensible  experience,  and 
forced  to  confess  it.  It  has  been  specially  per- 
mitted me  now  for  several  years  to  become  ac- 
quainted with  the  human  selfhood,  and  it  has 
been  granted  me  to  perceive  clearly  that  of  my- 
self I  could  think  nothing,  but  that  every  idea 
of  thought  entered  by  influx,  and  lastly  how 
and  whence  this  influx  entered.  He  therefore 
who  supposes  that  he  lives  of  himself  cherishes 
a  mistaken  judgment,  and  in  consequence  ap- 
propriates to  himself  evil  and  falsity,  which  he 
would  never  do  if  his  belief  were  formed  ac- 
cording to  the  real  truth  of  the  case."^  "  When 
such  people  are  asked  what  it  is  to  have  no  self- 
originating  principle  of  action,  they  reply  that  it 
is  the  same  thing  as  not  existing."* 

1  Divine  Providence,  308,  309.  3  Ibid.,  150. 

2  Arc.  Cel.,  149.  ■*  Ibid.,  206. 


Imbecile  in  Himself.  469 

"  That  a  man  lives  from  the  Lord  alone,  is 
evident  from  this,  that  there  is  one  sole  essence, 
one  sole  substance,  and  one  sole  form,  from 
which  are  all  the  essences  substances  and  forms 
that  are  created.  This  same  truth  is  confirmed 
by  living  perception  among  the  angels,  especially 
the  superior  angels.  These  are  to  all  appearance 
as  if  they  lived  from  themselves  ;  yea,  more  so 
than  the  inferior  angels  :  which  results  from  the 
fact  that  in  proportion  as  any  one  is  inwardly 
conjoined  with  the  Lord,  he  seems  to  himself 
more  distinctly  his  own,  though  reflectively  it 
is  more  clear  to  him  that  he  is  the  Lord's."^ 

"  Man's  feeling  that  he  is  his  own  life  and  his 
thinking  so,  are  from  fallacy,  or  because  the 
principal  is  only  perceived  in  the  instrument  as 
one  with  it."^ 

Thus,  according  to  Swedenborg,  man  and  an- 
gel are  permitted  to  feel  that  their  life  is  their  own, 
their  selfhood  or  freedom  absolute,  because  other- 
wise they  would  have  no  basis  of  spiritual  con- 
junction with  God  ;  for  clearly  God  cannot  be 
conjoined  with  anything  out  of  His  own  image 
and  likeness.  By  this  permission  they  are  enabled 
consciously  to  reciprocate  the  Divine  love,  and 
so  become  immortal.  But  the  feeling  is  in  itself 
deceptive  and  requires  the  regulation  of  the  re- 
flective understanding.  For  our  freedom  or  self- 
hood is  really  not  absolute,  but  rigidly  condi- 
tional. Swedenborg  shows  us  to  be  so  closely 
associated  with  spiritual  societies  as  to  our  affec- 
tion and  thought,  that  if  we  were  forcibly  sep- 

1  Divine  Providence,  158.  2  Divine  Love  and  Wisdom,  4. 


470         Neither  Man,  Angel,   nor  Devil 

arated  from  them,  we  should  fall  down  dead  : 
"  our  life,"  as  he  says,  "  remaining  only  in  that 
inmost  form  by  which  we  are  humanly  avouched 
and  rendered  immortal."^  "Neither  angel  nor 
devil  has  any  power  in  himself  if  he  had  the 
least,  heaven  would  fall  to  pieces,  hell  become  a 
chaos,  and  Nature  perish."^  "  Nothing  whatever 
acts  from  itself,  but  from  something  still  prior; 
thus  nothing  at  all  acts  but  by  communication 
from  a  First  which  does  act  of  itself  and  which 
is  God.  There  is  thus  but  one  sole  Life,  and  this 
incapable  of  being  created,  though  it  is  eminently 
capable  of  communicating  itself  to  forms  organi- 
cally apposite  to  its  reception.  All  the  objects 
in  the  created  universe,  even  to  the  most  minute 
of  all  objects,  are  such  receptive  forms.  Many 
believe  that  the  soul  is  itself  a  spark  of  life ; 
thus  that  man  since  he  lives  from  his  soul,  lives 
from  his  own  life,  or  of  himself  and  not  by  an 
influx  of  life  from  God.  From  such  a  belief 
proceed  innumerable  and  abhorrent  fallacies  ;  as, 
for  example,  that  God  in  creation  transfers  and 
transcribes  himself  into  men,  and  hence  that 
every  man  is  a  sort  of  deity  that  lives  of  him- 
self," &c.  &C.3 

If  these  things  be  true,  and  that  they  are  so 
seems  obvious  to  common  sense,  it  becomes  per- 
fectly clear  that  however  necessary  a  part  our 
freedom  or  selfhood  plays  in  reference  to  our 

1  Athanasian  Creed,  58.     See  2  Ath.  Creed,  34. 

also  The  Divine  Love  and  Wis-  3  Intercourse     of    Soul     and 

dom,  H4,  115,  116,  and  indeed  Body,  II.     See  Appendix,  Note 

passim.  I. 


has  the  least  Power  in  Himself.         471 

immortal  spiritual  conjunction  with  God,  it  is 
after  all  wholly  subsidiary  to  that  end;  is  in  fact 
altogether  involved  in  it,  and  by  no  means 
evolved  from  it.  That  is  to  say,  history  (which 
is  the  sphere  of  our  free  activity)  is  not  an  event 
supervening  upon  our  creation,  and  introducing 
new  and  unexpected  complications  between 
creature  and  creator.  By  no  means.  It  is  on 
the  contrary  in  its  utmost  scope  and  breadth,  a 
pure  incident  of  our  creation,  being  nothing 
more  nor  less  in  fact  than  the  gradual  and  sure 
working  out  of  that  great  spiritual  truth  to  our 
actual  consciousness :  so  developing  us  to  the 
measure  of  the  creative  perfection,  and  filling  us 
with  His  beatitude.  It  is  sheer  atheism  to  con- 
ceive otherwise ;  to  conceive  of  any  real  inde- 
pendence of  the  creature  with  regard  to  the 
creator,  as  at  all  possible.  What  sort  of  a  cre- 
ator could  he  be  said  to  be,  whose  creature  had 
power  to  renounce  the  being  it  owed  exclusively 
to  him  ?  What  sort  of  creative  excellence 
would  he  exhibit,  whose  hold  upon  his  creature 
was  contingent  upon  the  creature's  pleasure  : 
whose  sole  capacity  to  bless  his  creature  could 
be  permanently  compromised  and  even  alto- 
gether frustrated  by  the  latter's  indisposition  to 
be  blessed  '?  No  doubt  it  is  impossible  to  give 
immortal  life  to  a  stone,  a  cabbage,  or  a  skunk, 
because  these  are  servile  forms  of  existence  :  no 
doubt,  in  other  words,  that  certain  conditions  of 
freedom  or  selfhood  in  the  creature,  are  requisite 
to  base  this  gift  on  the  part  of  the  creator.  But 
how  exquisitely  puerile  it  is  to  conceive  that  what 


472  Man's  Freedom  utterly  servile 

is  the  mere  indispensable  condition  of  an  event, 
should  have  power  to  adjourn  the  event !  How 
grossly  contradictory  to  represent  the  exact 
method  of  a  certain  achievement  —  the  method 
of  its  execution  —  as  at  the  same  time  the 
method  of  its  defeat ! 

It  cannot  be  denied  of  course  that  human 
freedom,  human  selfhood,  is  a  very  absolute  and 
unyielding  quantity  in  incompetent  hands;  but 
not  in  those  of  God  almighty.  Pius  Ninth, 
whom  the  progress  of  events  and  his  own  strict- 
ly logical  obduracy  have  reduced  to  the  dimen- 
sions of  a  mere  scold,  has  no  power  to  placate 
it  in  the  interest  of  established  religion.  And 
the  sombre  sanguinary  mime,  who  has  been 
Providentially  allowed  to  vault  for  a  day  upon 
the  throne  of  France  —  as  if  to  disabuse  men  of 
any  illusions  they  might  have  indulged  in  regard 
to  some  possible  conipromise  between  Truth  and 
Falsity  :  between  unlimited  Freedom  on  the  one 
hand  and  arbitrary  Authority  on  the  other :  by 
showing  them  how  much  more  truculent  and 
unveracious,  how  much  more  disastrous  to  the 
peace  of  the  world  and  offensive  to  its  decencies, 
a  brand-new  self-constituted  despotism  is  sure  to 
be,  than  any  even  of  the  oldest  and  most  disso- 
lute church-anointed  ones  —  is  equally  unskilled 
to  cajole  it  in  the  interest  of  political  quackery. 
But  God  almighty  is  quite  a  different  personage 
and  power  from  any  of  these.  He  harmlessly 
wields  and  directs  the  very  lightning  by  which 
they  are  now  mocked,  now  scathed  and  con- 
sumed.    Man's  amplest  selfhood  or  freedom  is 


to  the  Divine  Councils.  473 

His  unlimited  handmaid,  bom  of  the  most  vi- 
tal needs  of  His  infinite  Love ;  and  it  can  no 
more  fail  to  image  His  great  perfection,  than 
the  obedient  marble  can  fail  to  reflect  the  genius 
of  Phidias. 

In  fact  Nature  is  infinitely  more  pliant  to  the 
Divine  will  —  infinitely  more  sensitive  to  the 
Divine  manipulation  —  than  marble  can  ever 
possibly  be  to  the  hand  of  the  sculptor.  For 
the  relation  between  God  and  Nature  in  our 
spiritual  creation,  is  a  strictly  conjugal  one,  im- 
plying not  the  enforced  but  the  spontaneous 
subjection  of  the  wife  to  the  husband.  The 
relation  of  the  sculptor  to  his  marble,  or  of  the 
artist  universally  to  his  material  is  rather  that  of 
a  lover  to  his  mistress,  in  which  the  subjection 
of  the  latter  to  the  former  is  still  wilful  and  ca- 
pricious. The  perfect  marriage  fusion  which 
exists  between  infinite  and  finite,  between  God 
and  Nature,  with  respect  to  our  regeneration, 
insures  us  a  living  maternity  as  well  as  pater- 
nity, and  hence  makes  us  forms  of  life  naturally 
no  less  than  spiritually.  No  such  relation  as 
this  exists  between  the  sculptor  and  his  marble. 
The  statue  is  a  wholly  artificial  form,  begotten 
without  Nature's  concert  or  even  consent,  being 
forcibly  imposed  upon  her  substance.  We  on 
the  other  hand  are  never  artificial  save  when  the 
exigencies  of  priest  and  king  —  the  needs  of  a 
corrupt  Church  and  a  decaying  State  —  warp  us 
from  our  natural  integrity.  There  is  thus  no 
community  or  identity  between  the  statue  and 
any  of  Nature's   forms.      Nature    ignores   and 


474  Marble  is  not  more  pliant 

abhors  every  form  which  is  outwardly  impressed 
upon  her,  or  whose  development  is  due  to  Force. 
She  produces  only  forms  of  life  or  consciousness, 
whose  development  is  from  within  outwards. 
The  marble  is  spiritually  uncreated  by  the  sculp- 
tor ;  that  is  to  say,  is  wholly  unpervaded  or  un- 
vivified  by  his  distinctive  genius;  and  he  conse- 
quently is  obliged  to  subjugate  it  forcibly  or 
from  without  to  his  will :  the  offspring  of  his 
operation  being  of  course  destitute  of  conscious- 
ness, because  destitute  of  living  maternity.  But 
nature  is  all  Divinely  instinct  and  pregnant  with 
her  offspring  before  they  are  born,  undergoing 
any  amount  of  sympathetic  suffering  indeed 
while  the  period  of  gestation  endures ;  so  that 
we  are  full  of  self-consciousness  by  natural  right 
even,  or  right  of  the  mother,  and  feel  ourselves 
identical  with  all  her  force.  And  what  is  more 
the  Divine  artist  in  shaping  our  subsequent  spir- 
itual extrication,  never  overrides  nor  outrages  in 
the  slightest  degree  this  natural  consciousness  on 
our  part,  but  on  the  contrary  becomes  able  to 
woo  it  and  win  it  over  to  his  superior  friendship 
and  fellowship,  only  by  disowning  every  method 
but  that  of  the  most  tender  and  assiduous  con- 
ciliation. 

Unquestionably  there  is  this  obvious  and  enor- 
mous difference  between  the  statue,  regarded  as 
the  product  of  man's  compulsory  power  over 
Nature,  and  man  himself,  regarded  as  the  prod- 
uct of  God's  spiritual  presence  within  Nature. 
Nobody  can  be  more  willing  and  indeed  alert 
than  I  am  to  establish  this   difference  in  all  its 


to  the  Hand  of  the  Sculptor.  475" 

legitimate  extent.  But  great  as  the  difference 
manifestly  is,  it  sinks  into  absolute  nothing  as 
arguing  ifi  us  any  independence  towards  God 
which  the  statue  does  not  equally  claim  with 
respect  to  the  sculptor.  In  fact  I  maintain  that 
human  life  is  not  only  just  as  pliant  to  the  Di- 
vine hand  as  clay  is  pliant  to  the  hands  of  the 
potter,  and  just  as  incapable  of  resisting  His 
will,  but  in  the  long  run  is  infinitely  more 
so. 

For  this  life  of  Nature,  which  to  all  appear- 
ance is  so  absolutely  her  own,  is  in  truth  God's 
life  in  her.  It  is  her  own  life  only  provisionally, 
that  is,  so  long  as  she  subserves  God's  ulterior 
formative  or  redemptive  purposes  in  Man.  God 
creates  Nature  only  that  He  may  form  Man. 
He  alone  gives  us  natural  substance  or  identity, 
and  spiritual  form  or  individuality;  but  He  gives 
us  the  former  only  in  the  strictest  subserviency 
to  the  latter;  and  consequently  hides  Himself 
with  exquisite  carefulness  from  natural  sight. 
Because  if  He  should  allow  us  a  sensible  per- 
ception however  dim  that  we  were  not  ourselves 
absolutely,  or  by  nature  alone  and  irrespectively 
o^  Him:  any  more  than  the  statue  is  itself  abso- 
lutely, or  by  virtue  of  its  material  exclusively, 
and  independently  of  the  artist:  our  self-con- 
sciousness would  be  fundamentally  vitiated,  and 
we  should  remain  no  whit  less  lifeless  than  the 
statue  itself  He  takes  exquisite  care  therefore 
to  guard  us  against  this  fatality.  He  gives  us 
life  or  selfhood  in  an  inward  concealed  way 
altogether,  that  is,  by  spiritually  vivifying  Na- 


47^        Our  native  JVickedness  negatively 

ture,  or  transfiguring  it  into  History;  so  that 
our  consciousness  in  becoming  subject  to  the 
limitations  of  space  and  the  relations  of  time, 
stamps  us  to  our  own  experience  as  inevitably 
finite  and  relative  existences,  and  hence  forever 
discriminates  us  from  Him.  Thus  as  I  said 
God  creates  or  gives  being  to  Nature,  but  only 
that  He  may  thereby  make,  or  spiritually  form, 
us.  For  w&  seeing  nothing  and  suspecting 
nothing  of  the  latent  Divine  presence  in  nature, 
suppose  her  maternity  to  be  final  or  absolute, 
and  hence  unhesitatingly  appropriate  the  life 
with  which  she  is  aglow  to  ourselves,  to  the 
extent  of  becoming  spiritually  bound  up  and 
identified  with  all  its  issues. 

Now  as  this  life  is  in  itself  really  Divine,  that 
is  to  say,  infinite  as  having  no  relation  to  space, 
and  absolute  as  having  no  relation  to  time,  we, 
in  thus  appropriating  it  as  we  do  without  the 
least  misgiving  to  our  most  undivine  —  i.  e. 
finite  and  relative  —  selves,  of  necessity  break  it 
up,  belittle,  and  degrade  it  to  the  minutest  dimen- 
sions of  egotism  and  lust.  This  necessity  will 
at  once  become  intelligible  to  the  reader,  if  he 
imagine  the  sculptor  as  primarily  creating  — 
i.  e.  animating  by  his  own  genius  —  the  clay 
out  of  which  the  statue  is  subsequently  to  be 
shaped.  It  is  obvious  that  the  statue  in  that 
case  would  be  no  longer  lifeless  but  living, 
being  animated  or  invested  with  personality  on 
the  mother's  side  as  well  as  the  father's.  If  the 
sculptor  himself  inwardly  quickened  or  gave 
spiritual  substance  to  the  marble,  as  God  quick- 


attests  the  Divinity  of  our  Origin.       477 

ens  or  gives  spiritual  substance  to  Nature,  the 
marble  like  Nature  would  instinctively  yearn  to 
his  desire,  would  spontaneously  bring  forth  what- 
soever he  exacted  of  it ;  and  the  offspring  conse- 
quently would  palpitate  with  all  the  mother's 
life.  Like  ourselves  indeed  it  would  be  alive 
or  conscious  only  on  the  maternal  side :  for 
however  traditionally  instructed  it  might  be- 
come in  the  faith  of  an  invisible  spiritual  pater- 
nity, operative  within  the  bowels  of  its  material 
substance,  this  would  long  remain,  like  our  tradi- 
tional faith  in  God's  creative  presence  in  nature, 
a  mere  doctrinal  and  not  an  experimental  con- 
viction, while  the  statue  would  infallibly  incline 
just  as  we  do  to  accept  its  own  actual  conscious- 
ness as  the  measure  of  the  truth,  or  infer  that 
what  it  organically  grasped  of  existence  was  in 
fact  the  all  of  life.  Thus  its  spiritual  immatu- 
rity or  lack  of  living  sympathy  with  its  paternal 
progenitor  —  its  historic  inexperience  and  igno- 
rance of  everything  beyond  the  seeming  and 
palpable  —  would  leave  it  without  any  true 
standard  of  judgment :  would  render  it  in  its 
own  private  estimation  a  very  perfect  creation 
already,  and  array  it  in  every  presumptuous, 
arrogant,  and  if  need  be,  overbearing  and  hos- 
tile attitude  towards  its  fellows. 

This  is  our  own  moral  history  in  a  similitude. 
The  sole  philosophic  explanation  of  our  univer- 
sal natural  pride  truculence  and  turbulence  is, 
that  we  take  our  natural  consciousness  for  grant- 
ed, regard  it  as  absolute,  suppose  ourselves  to  be 
spiritually  or  individually  vitalized  as  we  issue 


47^  Our  Experience  of  Evil  stri^ly 

from  Nature's  womb,  whereas  we  are  then  living 
a  wholly  supposititious  life,  a  life  upon  which  we 
have  not  the  slightest  conceivable  claim,  except 
in  virtue  of  its  prospective  spiritual  advantage 
to  us.  Accordingly  whenever  our  consciousness 
reports  us  in  any  degree  superior  to  the  persons 
about  us,  there  is  no  end  of  our  spiritual  cackling 
or  inward  self-complacency  over  the  discovery ; 
or  in  any  degree  inferior,  there  is  no  end  of  our 
inward  chagrin  and  despondency.  In  short  we 
each  of  us  instinctively  appropriate  this  great 
and  infinite  life  of  God  in  Nature  to  ourselves,  to 
our  own  puny  finite  selves:  but  inasmuch  as  we 
are  yet  historically  unreconciled  to  each  other; 
inasmuch  as  these  finite  selves  of  ours  have  not 
as  yet  been  infinited  — /.  e.  harmonized  one  with 
another  —  by  the  advent  of  a  true  society,  fel- 
lowship, or  equality  among  men,  and  are  conse- 
quently without  that  field  of  spontaneous  action 
which  only  such  a  society  guarantees :  so  the 
Divine  life  thus  instinctively  appropriated  by  us, 
finds  no  adequate  and  orderly  ultimation  in  our 
outward  life  and  action,  and  hence  is  constrained 
to  come  forth  in  every  perverse  infernal  form  of 
self-seeking,  lust,  and  murder. 

But  what  of  all  this  a  thousand  times  over  ? 
It  is  a  strict  constitutional  or  subjective  experi- 
ence, and  has  no  more  logical  relevancy  to  our 
perfected  individuality,  to  our  objective  spiritual 
creation,  than  the  rude  unseemly  heaps  of  bricks 
and  mortar,  which  bestrew  the  site  of  a  palace, 
have  to  the  future  accomplished  edifice.  Evil 
belongs  to  our  purely  natural  or  embryonic  con- 


Constitutional  or  SubjeBive.  479 

sciousness,  bearing  precisely  the  same  relation 
to  the  spiritual  perfectness  we  acquire  in  the 
Lord,  that  the  uncouth  unhandsome  lineaments 
of  the  foetus  bear  to  the  full-grown  man.  For 
as  we  saw  just  now,  although  the  statue  being 
animated  to  its  own  consciousness  only  by  its 
visible  mother,  and  incapable  as  yet  of  spirit- 
ually reflecting  or  reproducing  the  genius  of  its 
father,  might  be  a  very  conceited  and  foolish 
statue,  a  very  imperfect  and  contemptible  one  as 
primarily  begotten  and  born,  it  would  yet  be  a 
conscious  one,  instinct  with  a  life  or  personality 
of  its  own,  and  capable  therefore  of  being 
moulded  by  the  paternal  spirit,  which  all  the 
while  vivifies  its  maternal  substance,  into  any 
grace  of  form  and  demeanor  which  that  spirit 
itself  originally  is.  Of  course  the  sculptor  — 
had  he  really  this  power  previously  to  impreg- 
nate the  marble  by  his  genius  —  would  be  bound 
to  acquiesce  in  its  essential  characteristics  as 
marble,  and  demand  an  offspring  only  so  far  ap- 
proximate to  himself  originally,  as  those  respect- 
able characteristics  permitted.  Nothing  could 
be  more  puerile  on  his  part  than  to  blame  the 
statue  for  any  possible  imperfection  or  limitation 
attaching  to  it  on  its  merely  constitutional  side. 
For  the  very  task  of  his  genius  is  so  to  vivify 
the  obedient  marble  with  ideal  grace,  as  that  the 
statue  may  finally  get  complete  extrication,  or 
imperfect  substance  become  taken  up  and  glori- 
fied into  perfect  form. 

The  child  however  offers  us  a  better,  because 
ready-made,  illustration   of   the    point   in   hand. 


480  Evil  means  tke  Domination  of 

The  child  derives  body  from  the  mother  exclu- 
sively, and  quickening  soul  from  the  father.  Yet 
no  father  is  silly  enough  to  be  angry  that  his 
child  is  born  spiritually  feeble,  individually  in- 
firm, insufficient  to  himself  indeed  beyond  all 
other  natural  forms.  Why  ?  Because  he  sees 
in  the  child's  constitutional  feebleness  but  an 
image  or  emblem  of  the  spiritual  destitution 
which  the  universal  mind  of  man  is  under  tow- 
ards God  by  nature,  or  before  culture  has  set 
in ;  the  visible  mother  in  any  case  being  but  the 
mute  unconscious  symbol  of  a  far  grander  invisi- 
ble maternity  :  being  but  a  special  handmaid  or 
deputy  whom  great  Nature  honors  for  the  nonce 
with  her  own  indefeasible  function  and  attri- 
butes. As  the  universal  m.other  herself  at  first 
brings  forth  fruit  to  God,  spiritual  fruit,  not 
spontaneously  but  by  Divine  constraint,  the  con- 
straint of  priest  and  king,  so  necessarily  the  spe- 
cific or  representative  mother  being  under  law  to 
her  husband  and  subject  to  his  will,  brings  forth 
natural  fruit  with  infinite  labor  and  sorrow.  She 
is  as  passive  to  her  own  inherited  limitations  — 
as  passive  to  the  capacity  of  the  common  mother 
- — as  her  child  is  passive  to  her.-^ 

To  the  reader  who  duly  weighs  the  foregoing 
considerations,  nothing  will  seem  more  fallacious 
than  the  tendency  of  religion,  on  the  one  hand, 
to  exalt  our  natural  identity  to  practical  infini- 
tude, by  making  us  spiritually  chargeable  before 
God  with  all  the  good  and  evil  which  inhere  in 
our  physical  temperament ;  and  of  science,  on  the 

1  See  Appendix,  note  J. 


the  Individual  by  the  Common  Life.      481 

other,  to  give  absoluteness  to  our  natural  indi- 
viduality, in  making  us  morally  chargeable  be- 
fore society  with  all  the  good  and  evil  which  flow 
from  our  action.  They  might  with  equal  pro- 
priety defame  the  statue  itself  for  the  imperfec- 
tions inherent  in  Its  material ;  or  place  a  laurel 
crown  upon  its  head  for  the  skill  which  the 
sculptor  has  exhibited  in  putting  those  imper- 
fections out  of  sight.  Of  course  the  statue  is 
ideally  perfect  —  i.  e.  perfect  as  a  work  of  Art 
—  only  in  so  far  as  it  marries  opus  et  materies, 
form  and  substance,  sculptor  and  marble,  in  its 
own  indistinguishable  unity  ;  just  as  we  are  spir- 
itually perfect  —  /.  e.  perfect  as  a  Divine  crea- 
tion—  and  attain  to  the  stature  of  finished  man- 
hood, only  in  so  far  as  we  reconcile  father  and 
mother,  God  and  Nature,  spirit  and  flesh,  infi- 
nite and  finite  in  the  bosom  of  our  sesthetic 
individuality,  of  our  spontaneous  life  and  action. 
But  this  is  a  very  different  thing  from  saying 
that  we  are  literally  full  of  personal  merit  and 
personal  demerit  towards  our  respective  sources. 
It  is  one  thing,  and  a  perfectly  righteous  thing, 
to  say  that  the  statue  is  individually  perfect  or 
imperfect  as  measured  by  its  own  ideal,  and 
that  we  are  individually  perfect  or  imperfect  as 
measured  against  our  Divine  destiny.  But  it 
is  quite  another,  and  a  perfectly  unrighteous, 
thing,  to  say  that  either  of  us  has  the  slight- 
est possible  relation,  either  of  individual  merit 
or  of  individual  demerit,  with  respect  either 
to  the  formative  substance  out  of  which,  or 
31 


482        Good  means  the  Social  Subje5lion 

the  creative  power  by  which,  we  are  severally 
begotten  and  brought  forth. 

We  are  in  no  danger  of  ever  enacting  this 
judgment  with  regard  to  the  statue.  Why  ? 
For  the  obvious  reason  that  the  statue  is  a 
strictly  formal  and  in  no  wise  substantial  effigy 
of  its  maker's  genius.  It  is  a  purely  ideal  or 
imaginative  and  therefore  lifeless  form.  It  lacks 
natural  or  constitutional  identity  with  other  ex- 
istence, and  hence  is  destitute  alike  of  subjec- 
tive consciousness  and  objective  reality.  But 
we  habitually  enact  the  judgment  with  respect 
to  ourselves.  Why?  Simply  because  we  have 
precisely  what  the  statue  lacks,  natural  selfhood 
or  identity,  and  are  therefore  capable  of  appro- 
priating to  ourselves  a  good  and  a  truth  which 
are  really  Divine,  but  which  we  could  never 
dream  of  ascribing  to  the  statue.  Thus  the 
difference  between  us  is  not  in  any  conceivable 
inequality  of  dependence  we  are  severally  under 
to  the  powers  which  create  us  —  for  no  such 
inequality  exists  —  but  solely  in  the  hopeless 
inequality  of  those  creative  powers  themselves. 
The  love  which  is  operative  in  our  creation  is 
infinite  :  that  is  to  say,  it  is  so  unhindered  by 
any  regard  to  self,  as  to  make  itself  unstintedly 
over  to  us,  and  hence  leave  us  no  rest  until  we 
have  become  both  collectively  and  individually 
endued  with  all  its  perfection;  or  until  we  have 
become  in-finited  in  our  turn,  by  becoming  con- 
sciously one  each  with  all  and  all  with  each.  The 
love  which  fashions  the  statue  on  the  other  hand 
is  a  finite  love,  the  love  of  realizing  and  enjoying 


of  the  Common  to  the  Individual  Life.    483 

its  own  existence  and  potency,  and  is  so  little 
creative  therefore  or  capable  of  communicating 
even  its  own  meagre  inspiration  to  the  work  of 
its  hands,  as  to  leave  it  relatively  dead.  In  short 
we  by  virtue  of  the  greatness  of  our  creative 
source  possess  natural  selfhood  or  freedom, 
which  is  a  consciousness  of  life  in  ourselves, 
and  hence  by  instinctively  appropriating  a  good 
which  is  infinite,  and  a  truth  which  is  absolute, 
we  become  at  last  Divinely  empowered  to  re- 
produce them,  and  make  them  legitimately  our 
own,  in  all  the  breadth  of  our  associated  life, 
and  all  the  fruits  of  our  spontaneous  action. 


CHAPTER   XXVI. 

I  HAVE  now  finished  —  most  imperfectly  I  ad- 
mit—  the  task  I  set  myself,  which  was  to  illus- 
trate the  Physics  of  Creation,  by  showing  how 
practically  paramount  in  the  Divine  regard  the 
interests  of  our  natural  identity  or  community 
must  always  be,  to  those  of  our  spiritual  indi- 
viduality and  difference.  I  have  shown  that  if 
the  creator  have  power,  first  of  all,  to  give  us 
such  valid  projection  from  Himself  as  is  equiva- 
lent to  our  experience  of  a  perfectly  veracious 
consciousness  or  selfhood  —  which  he  does  by 
suffering  us  to  know  and  appropriate  all  the 
good  and  evil  wrapped  up  in  our  finite  nature 
—  He  can  have  no  difficulty  in  subsequently 
moulding  that  consciousness  to  whatsoever  spir- 
itual issues  He  will.  If  we  feel  ourselves  so 
identified  with  our  natural  constitution,  with  our 
natural  organization  of  sensibility  and  intelli- 
gence, as  freely  to  assume  all  the  good  and  evil 
which  inhere  in  its  exercise,  then  the  Divine 
Providence  will  obviously  enjoy,  so  far  as  our 
consciousness  is  concerned,  a  clear  field  of  ad- 
ministration toward  us,  and  may  discipline  us 
to  what  heights  of  rational  and  spiritual  cul- 
ture He  sees  good.  But  manifestly  without 
this  natural  basis  He  can  achieve  no  manner  of 


Spiritual  Import  of  the  Gospel.  483" 

rational  nearness  to  us  ;  will  be  incapable  of  any 
sort  of  intercourse  with  us  ;  since  we  should  in 
that  case  remain  not  only  under  that  hopeless 
destitution  of  real  or  objective  being  to  which 
our  very  nature  condemns  us,  but  void  also  of 
the  phenomenal  or  subjective  existence  to  which 
He,  in  the  infinitude  of  His  power,  makes  even 
this  natural  destitution  ministerial.  I  have  am- 
ply shown  in  short  that  the  natural  existence  of 
the  creature  is  rigidly  indispensable  to  base  his 
spiritual  evolution :  to  confer  upon  him  that 
preliminary  basis  of  identity  or  fixity,  without 
which  his  private  individuality  —  his  spiritual 
being  or  character  —  would  be  wholly  impossi- 
ble and  even  inconceivable  :  so  that  God's  cre- 
ative presence  and  formative  or  redemptive  oper- 
ation IN  HUMAN  NATURE  ITSELF  —  and  not  as  we 
have  foolishly  supposed  in  the  isolated  individ- 
ual bosom  alone — avouch  themselves  the  inex- 
orably fundamental  postulate  henceforth  of  a 
true  Philosophy. 

I  might  indeed  stop  short  here,  because  I  have 
already  answered  as  I  went  along,  either  directly 
or  by  implication,  every  question  my  reader  will 
probably  feel  prompted  to  put  to  me.  But  I 
wish  to  add  a  word  more  by  way  of  summing 

"P-  .  .         . 

The  spiritual  import  of  the  gospel  is  that  God 

creates  us  every  moment  naturally  no  less  than 
spiritually;  that  He  gives  us  spiritual  form  in- 
deed only  by  giving  us  natural  substance.  This 
as  we  have  seen  is  precisely  what  is  meant  by 
creation,  philosophically  defined,  namely  the  giv- 


486  Creation  means  the  giving 

ing  natural  substance  (identity)  to  spiritual  form 
(individuality).  Of  course  the  creator  is  not 
supposed  to  create  Himself  in  any  case,  but 
another  than  Himself  And  no  possible  basis 
of  identity  can  exist  for  this  other  —  no  con- 
ceivable ground  of  consciousness  separating  him 
from  his  creator,  can  be  argued  for  him  —  unless 
it  be  supplied  by  this  very  destitution  of  being 
which  is  intrinsic,  or  as  we  say,  natural  to  him. 
The  fact  of  his  creation  implies  that  he  be  in 
himself  or  naturally  the  exact  opposite  of  what 
he  is  in  God  or  by  creation,  namely :  full  of 
destitution  :  so  that  unless  God's  spiritual  crea- 
tion be  organized  to  the  creature's  experience  on 
this  preliminary  basis  of  natural  destitution,  he 
will  never  know  anything  about  it,  will  never 
come  to  spiritual  consciousness,  but  must  remain 
forever  inanimate,  non-existent,  dead.  Hence  I 
say  that  creation  means  the  giving  natural  sub- 
stance to  spiritual  form :  since  the  nature  of  the 
creature,  which  alone  identifies  him  or  affords 
him  conscious  subjectivity,  is  the  only  thing 
which  spiritually  disjoins  him  with  God. 

In  order  to  leave  no  obscurity  upon  my  mean- 
ing, let  me  here  say  what  I  mean  by  the  nature 
of  the  creature  ;  for  clearly  God  can  have  no 
contact  with  human  nature  outside  of  the  hu- 
man consciousness.  By  the  created  nature,  then, 
I  mean  whatsoever  all  creatures  possess  in  com- 
mon :  thus  whatsoever  distinguishes  them  from 
their  creator.  Nature  is  thus  a  purely  spiritual 
quantity,  expressive  of  a  certain  community 
which  to  our  perception  characterizes  all  exist- 


Natural  Substance  to  Spiritual  Form.     487 

ence,  or  gives  it  identity  in  spite  of  its  individ- 
ual diversities.  It  signifies  no  visible  tangible 
conceivable  thing,  but  only  a  certain  spiritual 
bond,  a  certain  rational  order,  which  I  perceive 
investing  all  visible  tangible  things  equally  or 
in  common.  We  never  see  Nature,  nor  smell 
it,  nor  taste  it,  nor  touch  it,  nor  hear  it.  We 
see  and  hear  and  smell  and  taste  and  touch  the 
specific  things  of  nature  ;  that  is,  the  various 
individual  forms  which  this  common  bond  con- 
founds or  identifies.  We  see  the  tree  or  the 
horse,  we  breathe  the  air,  we  smell  the  rose,  we 
handle  the  rock,  we  drink  the  water,  which  are 
all  specific  natural  forms :  but  the  great  spiritual 
personality  of  Nature  herself  we  recognize  only 
in  thought.  In  short  our  conception  of  nature 
in  se  or  as  a  personality  and  apart  from  her 
specific  forms,  is  a  purely  intellectual  concep- 
tion. 

Accordingly  when  I  say  that  God  vivifies  the 
nature  of  His  creature,  in  order  to  give  the 
creature  that  sufficing  identity  which  may  serve 
to  base  his  subsequent  unlimited  spiritual  ex- 
pansion, I  do  not  of  course  picture  nature  to 
my  imagination  as  an  actual  entity  existing 
somewhere  in  itself  and  apart  from  the  experi- 
ence of  its  subjects,  which  God  visits  and  ma- 
nipulates. No  such  thing.  I  merely  mean  to 
say  that  He  quickens  the  common  mind  of  the 
race,  or  invests  it  with  His  own  perfection,  in 
such  a  manner  as  to  overcome  all  its  inherent 
weaknesses,  and  render  it  an  indestructible  foun- 
dation for  any  measure   of  spiritual   expansion 


488  Nature  means  the  'Principle 

on  the  part  of  its  individual  subjects.  In  other 
words  I  mean  that  He  runs  our  natural  com- 
munity or  identity  up  from  its  broadest  and 
most  diffuse  beginnings,  into  the  acutest  and 
most  exquisite  conceivable  individual  form  :  so 
that  we  shall  eventually  see  this  brute  and  abject 
Nature  transparent  with  human  substance,  glori- 
fied into  the  unity  of  a  living  Man. 

The  reader  now  sees  plainly  enough  that  when 
I  speak  of  the  nature  of  the  creature,  I  have  no 
idea  of  nature  as  a  material  quantity  realizable 
under  the  conditions  of  time  and  space,  but  ex- 
clusively as  a  spiritual  quantity  realizable  only 
under  the  conditions  of  consciousness.  And 
consequently  he  will  not  suppose  me  referring 

—  when  I  speak  of  God's  vivifying  our  nature 

—  to  any  imaginary  outside  or  physical  opera- 
tion of  God  on  us,  but  exclusively  to  His  spir- 
itual operation  within  the  limits  of  our  own 
phenomenal  consciousness.  He  is  of  a  love  so 
infinite,  i.  e.  so  void  of  self-love,  that  even  in 
bestowing  His  own  eternal  blessedness  upon  the 
creature,  He  does  so  in  no  arbitrary  overpower- 
ing way,  but  in  a  way  of  the  tenderest  and  most 
exquisite  conciliation  to  the  creature's  own  gross- 
est necessities,  to  his  own  most  abject  limitations. 
He  does  not  forcibly  drag  the  reluctant  and 
struggling  creature  by  the  hair  of  his  head  up  to 
His  own  impracticable  altitudes,  as  almost  any 
of  our  astonishing  doctors  of  divinity  would  be 
sure  to  do  ;  but  on  the  contrary  immerses  Him- 
self unshrinkingly  in  the  creature's  own  atmos- 
phere ;    diminishes    Himself    with    unfaltering 


of  Community  in  all  Existence.  489 

constancy  to  the  creature's  own  level ;  conde- 
scends with  loving  and  patient  perseverance  to 
every  most  ungodly  trait,  to  every  most  infirm 
tendency,  of  the  creature's  own  consciousness, 
in  order  there  to  construct  Himself  an  anchor- 
age in  the  creature's  regard  which  no  winds  will 
ever  jeopardize,  which  no  floods  will  ever  efface. 
In  short  His  love  is  so  unlike  ours,  as  to  let 
whatsoever  is  intrinsically  most  opposite  and 
repugnant  to  its  own  quality,  come  to  the  sur- 
face, come  to  the  amplest  self-consciousness,  only 
that  that  familiar  consciousness  may  itself  finally 
turn  out  the  all-sufficient  witness  of  the  creative 
mercy,  and  the  all-sufficient  pledge  of  the  crea- 
ture's invincible  fidelity. 

This  is  that  great  creative  operation  spiritually 
wrought  by  God  in  our  nature,  which  Chris- 
tianity reveals,  and  which  all  subsequent  history 
has  been  forcing  upon  our  comprehension  :  con- 
sisting first,  in  His  permitting  us,  as  a  community 
acknowledging  His  name,  to  feel  and  exhibit 
all  that  common  want  or  destitution  which  be- 
longs to  us  as  natural  subjects,  and  which  is 
merely  organized  in  our  appetites  and  passions, 
and  bring  forth  whatever  overpowering  cupidity 
and  ferocity  of  manners  are  bred  of  such  want: 
and  then  secondly  in  His  making  us  to  see  so 
keenly  all  the  horror  and  hideousness  of  this 
state  of  things,  as  of  ourselves  or  spiritually  to 
avert  ourselves  from  it,  and  eventually  disown 
and  disuse  every  method  and  institution  of  our 
associated  life  which  nourish  and  perpetuate  it. 
The  love  which  vivifies  our  common  nature,  or 


49°  Philosophic  Significance 

gives  us  being,  is  really  infinite  :  and  as  we  each 
of  us  with  every  breath  we  draw  appropriate 
this  infinitude  to  ourselves,  feeling  it  to  be  very 
bone  of  our  bone  and  flesh  of  our  flesh,  we 
necessarily  put  on  for  a  time  the  lineaments  of 
the  devil,  and  expand  to  all  the  dimensions  of 
conceit,  tyranny,  and  lust.  By  my  very  nature 
as  a  derivative  being' — as  having  really  no  life 
in  myself,  while  yet  I  feel  myself  full  of  life  — 
I  am  irresistibly  prone  to  all  manner  of  self- 
illusion  ;  instinctively  exalting  myself  out  of  all 
rational  measure,  and  claiming  a  dominion  wholly 
disproportionate  to  my  force.  Now  the  Divine 
Love  permits,  as  Revelation  teaches  us,  all  this 
natural  arrogance  obduracy  and  imbecility  on 
our  part,  in  the  interest  exclusively  of  our  im- 
mortal spiritual  advantage.  According  to  Rev- 
elation, which  affirms  Christ's  glorification  down 
to  his  flesh  and  bones  (/.  e.  the  consummate  mar- 
riage of  the  Divine  and  human  natures)  the  Di- 
vine Love  is  so  literally  infinite  in  its  resources, 
as  to  make  no  account  of  our  latent  and  uncon- 
scious selfishness,  but  on  the  contrary  allows  it 
every  conceivable  latitude  and  longitude  of  man- 
ifestation, in  order  that  His  own  true  power  in  en- 
dowing us  with  spiritual  manhood  may  thus  pro- 
cure itself  free  play.  In  a  word  the  Divine  Love 
is  of  that  essentially  formative  or  redemptive 
quality,  that  it  permits  its  creature  to  effloresce 
to  the  fullest  possibilities  of  his  natural  finiteness 
and  corruption,  in  order  that  the  interests  of  his 
conscious  identity  being  thus  put  upon  an  inde- 
structible basis,  he  may  at  last  become  endowed 


of  the  Christian  Truth.  491 

by  his  maker  with  a  spiritual  individuality  worthy 
of  Him  whose  glory  it  is  eternally  to  subjugate 
evil  to  good,  dark  to  light,  death  to  life. 

I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  it  is  this,  and  this 
alone,  which  makes  the  gospel  of  the  Lord  Je- 
sus Christ  worthy  of  its  name,  namely :  that  it 
shows  the  total  mystery  of  creation  to  lie  in  a 
formative  or  redemptive  work  Divinely  wrought 
within  the  very  nature  of  the  creature.  It  makes 
all  God's  creative  ability  to  turn  upon  His  un- 
stintedly glorifying  the  literal  flesh  and  bones  of 
His  creature;  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  ani- 
mating our  lowest  propensities  with  His  own  spir- 
itual substance.  Nothing  short  of  this  appeases 
the  mighty  hunger  of  the  heart  towards  God.  It 
is  much  no  doubt  when  one  is  prone  to  evil,  to 
be  forcibly  withheld  from  it,  as  Swedenborg  al- 
leges the  angels  are,  by  an  incessant  exertion 
of  Divine  power.  But  how  tedious  it  would 
be  to  believe  that  the  Divine  power  was  always 
to  be  thus  tasked  in  behalf  of  such  reptiles  as 
we  are !  How  gladly  would  one  forego  one's 
inmost  scoundrelism,  to  release  the  Divine  love 
from  any  further  strain  and  tension  in  his  behalf! 
How  irresistible  in  other  words  is  the  aspiration 
of  the  soul,  when  once  it  has  caught  the  flavor  of 
the  Divine  name,  to  become  like  Him,  to  be- 
come self-prompted,  self-sustained,  and  self-guar- 
anteed, in  all  goodness  and  truth !  Now  the 
gospel  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  the  fullest 
Divine  justification,  the  frankest  Divine  authen- 
tication, of  this  aspiration  on  our  part,  inasmuch 
as  it  shows  all  God's  love  and  wisdom  and  power 


492  Philosophic  Significance 

engaged  in  gratifying  it.  It  proves  the  Divine 
infinitude  to  be  so  real  a  quantity,  the  Divine 
love  to  be  so  absolute  an  energy,  as  to  glorify 
the  very  nature  of  the  creature,  by  converting 
its  intrinsic  evil  into  otherwise  unimaginable 
good,  its  abounding  death  into  otherwise  incon- 
ceivable life  :  so  vacating  or  superseding  that 
inveterate  oppugnancy  to  itself  which  inheres 
in  the  finite  constitution,  and  turning  it  into  the 
eternal  argument  and  illustration  of  its  own 
matchless  truth.  Creation  would  indeed  be 
wholly  inadmissible  to  a  philosophic  regard,  on 
any  lower  terms  than  those  prescribed  by  the 
gospel.  For  the  very  nature  of  the  creature,  as 
a  finite  or  dependent  being,  must  eternally  dis- 
qualify him  for  the  Divine  fellowship,  unless 
God's  own  resources  enable  Him  spiritually  to 
overcome  the  disqualification.  Hence  the  enor- 
mous aid  Revelation  brings  to  Philosophy,  in 
that  it  places  the  entire  stress  of  the  creative 
operation  in  overcoming  a  certain  obstacle 
which  the  finite  nature  itself  offers  to  the  Di- 
vine inhabitation ;  an  obstacle  so  genuine  and 
inveterate  as  to  succumb  to  nothing  short  of  the 
actual  Divine  vivification  of  the  nature,  and  its 
consequent  unimpeded  elevation  to  the  utmost 
heights  of  spiritual  form  and  order. 

Such  is  the  profound  philosophic  truth  which 
underlies  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Atonement, 
or  reconciliation  of  the  Divine  and  human  natures 
in  the  Christ.  The  infinite  God  himself  is  hence- 
forth the  open  secret  of  our  conscious  existence  as 
well  as  of  our  unconscious  being.    The  dogma  of 


of  the  Christian  Truth.  493 

Christ's  divinity,  of  his  glorification  down  to  his 
Uteral  flesh  and  bones,  impHes,  when  interiorly- 
viewed,  that  infinite  Love  and  Wisdom  create 
us  every  moment  physically  as  well  as  psychi- 
cally ;  afford  us  every  moment  natural  or  con- 
scious identity,  as  well  as  spiritual  or  unconscious 
individuality :  so  that  our  very  bodies,  being 
instinct  with  the  same  Life  which  quickens  our 
souls,  should  challenge  an  equal  sanctity  with 
them.^  "Creation,"  says  Swedenborg,  "signifies 
what  is  Divine  from  inmosts  to  outmosts,  or  from 
primaries  to  ultimates.  For  whatsoever  derives 
from  God,  begins  from  Himself  and  proceeds  ac- 
cording to  order  to  its  last  form,  thus  through  the 
heavens  into  the  world,  and  there  rests  as  in  its 
own  end,  for  the  ultimate  term  of  Divine  order 
is  in  mundane  nature.  Such  is  the  meaning  of 
creation."^  We  to  be  sure  have  not  the  faintest 
suspicion  of  God's  intimate  presence  and  opera- 
tion in  our  consciousness,  because  we  have  no 
recognition  of  His  creative  activity  in  Nature ; 
but  on  the  contrary  habitually  hold  nature  to  be 
so  indisputably  absolute,  as  to  conceive  a  just 
doubt  sometimes  whether  God  so  much  as  cre- 
ated it  "once  on  a  time."  In  very  juvenile  states 
of  mind  indeed  we  often  argue  ingeniously  even 
against  the  Divine  existence.  Verily  thou  art  a 
God  that  hide  St  thyself  0  God  of  Israel,  the  Saviour! 

1  A  superior  sanctity  even,  if  is  perfect,  is  holy  above  interior 

need   be.      For,   as   Swedenborg  things,  because   the   holiness  of 

remarks,  when  commenting  upon  interior    things    is    there    com- 

the  ephod  or   outer  garment   of  plete."     See  Arc.  Ceh,  9824. 
the    Jewish    high    priest,    "  the         2  A.rc.  Cel.,  10634. 
outmost  or  ultimate,  when  order 


494  Consciousness  always  identifies 

Of  course  the  reason  why  creation  always 
eludes  a  scientific  induction  is,  that  it  is  prima- 
rily a  process  of  matriculation,  and  the  mother 
is  naturally  nearer  and  dearer  to  the  child's  heart 
than  the  father.  Everything  which  exists  or  is 
formed  presupposes  both  a  visible  material  sub- 
stance out  of  which  —  and  an  invisible  spiritual 
force  by  which  —  it  exists  or  is  formed,  and  of 
which  it  is  the  unity.  The  former  element  in- 
corporates it,  gives  it  body,  so  identifying  it  with 
all  other  things;  the  latter  animates  it,  gives  it 
soul,  so  individualizing  it  from  all  other  things. 
In  other  words  the  making  of  things,  the  giving 
them  conscious  life  or  form,  involves  of  neces- 
sity a  double  movement :  one  dynamical,  active, 
and  paternal,  which  fecundates  the  thing,  gives 
it  spiritual  being  or  soul ;  the  other  statical,  pas- 
sive, and  maternal,  which  fixes  the  thing,  gives 
it  material  existence  or  body,  and  so  promotes  or 
serves  the  higher  spiritual  process. 

Now  what  I  say  is  that  consciousness  always 
identifies  its  subject  with  the  mother-element  in 
this  transaction,  and  separates  him  from  the 
father.  I  have  not  the  slightest  consciousness 
of  myself  save  upon  my  natural  side,  so  that 
unless  the  relation  between  God  and  Nature 
which  issues  in  my  creation,  turn  out  a  strictly 
conjugal  one,  in  which  the  wife  becomes  en- 
dowed with  all  the  wealth  of  the  husband,  or 
incorporate  with  His  substance,  I  shall  remain 
forever  ignorant,  except  from  hearsay  possibly, 
of  my  paternal  source.  I  know  myself,  or  am 
conscious,  only  as  a  natural  subject.     I  may  have 


us  with  maternal  Nature.  495 

heard  very  much  about  the  Divine  existence  apart 
from  Nature,  and  been  taught  to  infer  that  I 
shall  sooner  or  later  come  into  direct  relation  with 
such  existence.  But  the  information  is  supersti- 
tious, and  the  expectation  idle.  I  shall  never 
really  know  God,  save  in  so  far  as  He  is  inter- 
preted in  my  proper  self-knowledge  ;  save  in  so 
far  as  He  is  revealed  in  the  familiar  lineaments 
of  my  own  nature ;  save  in  so  far  as  He  is  repro- 
duced in  every  feature  of  my  own  subjectivity. 
The  child  knows  his  mother  without  anybody's 
help,  or  instinctively;  since  the  incessant  contact 
he  has  with  her  leaves  no  obscurity  upon  that 
point.  But  he  knows  his  father  only  upon  his 
mother's  testimony.  He  refuses  to  acknowl- 
edge any  one  as  lawful  father,  whom  she  does 
not  first  acknowledge  as  sole  husband.  This 
complete  dependence  of  the  father  upon  the 
mother  in  prolification,  is  what  gives  marriage 
its  legal  sanctity,  and  makes  conjugal  infidelity 
so  much  greater  a  reproach  to  the  woman  than 
the  man.  People  often  complain  of  the  legal 
subordination  of  the  wife  to  the  husband  in  mar- 
riage; and  rightfully  too.  For  it  has  nothing  to 
excuse  it  but  the  typical  virtue  of  the  institution, 
which  implies  the  mystical  union  of  the  Divine 
and  human  natures  in  all  true  creation ;  or  im- 
ports that  the  lower  nature  becomes  so  intimately 
and  inseparably  fused  with  the  higher  one,  in  the 
social  regeneration  of  the  race,  as  that  Immanuel 
—  God  with  us — must  eventually  confess  itself 
the  sole  authentic  and  living  Word  of  the  New 
Dispensation. 


496         fVhy  does  the  IVife's  Personality 

The  law  of  our  civic  morality  which  suspends 
the  legitimacy  of  the  child  upon  the  father  alone, 
thus  implying  the  civic  inferiority  of  the  mother, 
seems,  like  a  thousand  other  things  in  our  tradi- 
tional ethics,  a  wholly  arbitrary  arrangement. 
For  one  would  naturally  say  that  the  visible 
mother  afforded  a  far  readier  and  less  dubious 
ground  of  affiliation  for  the  child  than  the  invis- 
ible father.  The  custom  however  is  to  honor 
the  less  obvious  paternal  element,  and  nothing 
reconciles  the  mind  to  it,  or  redeems  it  from 
glaring  caprice,  but  the  fact  that  all  our  historic 
experience  of  every  sort  —  great  as  it  appears  in 
itself —  is  yet  vastly  greater  and  more  interest- 
ing in  its  typical  character;  that  is  to  say  when 
viewed  as  representing  a  profounder  and  more 
permanent  because  Divine  order  of  life  for  man 
upon  earth.  The  honor  we  traditionally  pay  to 
paternity  over  maternity  is  not  an  arbitrary  thing. 
It  grows  out  of  the  absolute  necessity  all  human 
legislation  has  been  under  to  reflect  and  promote 
the  great  truth  of  human  destiny,  which  is  the 
Divine  Incarnation,  or  the  eventual  unimpeded 
manifestation  of  the  infinite  Divine  perfection 
in  all  the  forms  of  human  nature,  especially  its 
basest  forms.  During  the  infancy  of  the  race  as 
of  the  individual  of  course,  the  law  of  the 
mother  prevails  over  that  of  the  father,  so  that 
at  last  the  mind  would  infallibly  succumb  to  this 
strong  bias  and  sink  down  in  abject  Naturalism, 
were  it  not  that  the  Divine  Providence  so  guides 
and  overrules  human  legislation,  as  gradually  to 
mould  the  very  mind  itself  of  the  race  upon  this 


merge  in  that  of  the  Husband?         497 

great  interior  truth  of  its  altogether  Divine  and 
infinite  paternity,  and  its  merely  finite  and  com- 
paratively unimportant  maternity.  This  provi- 
dential shaping  of  the  common  mind  of  the  race 
shows  itself  very  strikingly  in  this  customary 
rule  of  affiliation.  For  while  we  have  individu- 
ally had  no  conception  of  the  actual  truth  of  the 
case,  but  on  the  contrary  have  supposed  our  be- 
ing to  be  wholly  natural  and  finite,  the  Divine 
Love  has  been  all  the  while  silently  defeating  the 
fallacy,  by  fashioning  our  entire  historic  con- 
sciousness upon  the  mould  of  the  opposite  ver- 
ity :  that  is  to  say,  by  making  the  common  or 
associate  mind  reflect  the  rightful  primacy  of  the 
spiritual  or  propagative  energy  in  creation,  repre- 
sented by  the  father,  over  the  material  and  merely 
productive  energy,  represented  by  the  mother. 

But  the  law  is  universal,  being  avouched  as 
much  in  art  as  in  life.  The  sculptor  forms  his 
statue  out  of  the  maternal  marble,  only  by  endu- 
ing the  marble  with  the  form  of  his  own  genius, 
investing  it  with  the  impress  of  his  own  aesthetic 
personality.  The  marble  finites  the  statue,  or 
imprisons  it  in  her  own  unexplored  womb.  The 
genius  of  the  sculptor  animates  the  statue,  gives 
it  soul  or  ideal  form,  merely  by  ^s'^-fining  it,  so 
to  speak,  or  /;^-finiting  it  from  this  maternal  en- 
velope. The  mother  finites  the  child,  or  wraps 
it  away  from  light  and  life,  from  sight  and  con- 
sciousness in  her  own  unconscious  bowels :  the 
seed  of  the  father  releases  the  child  from  this 
imprisonment,  by  animating  it  or  giving  it  living 
soul.  The  truth  which  the  poet  sings,  the  beauty 
32 


498  The  Reason  to  be  found  only 

which  the  painter  reproduces  upon  the  canvas, 
the  science  which  the  scholar  patiently  elaborates, 
He  all  hopelessly  entombed  under  any  amount 
of  actual  obscuration  and  deformity:  the  pene- 
trating aroma  of  the  student's  or  artist's  genius 
pervades  their  sepulchre,  and  awakens  the  mute 
unconscious  inmates  to  life  and  form.  These 
illustrations,  which  might  be  multiplied  to  any 
extent,  make  it  plain  that  all  existence  or  form 
both  natural  and  artificial  presupposes  a  most 
unequal  or  divided  parentage ;  and  then  sup- 
poses a  union  so  truly  conjugal  between  these 
discordant  parents,  as  that  the  maternal  element 
becomes  taken  up  and  disappears  in  the  paternal 
one ;  or  what  is  material  substance  becomes  rav- 
ished —  glorified  —  transfigured  into  spiritual 
form. 

The  fundamental  law  of  all  true  creation 
or  prolification  is  marriage,  and  marriage  never 
takes  place  between  equals,  but  on  the  contrary 
invariably  exacts  a  hierarchical  distribution  of 
the  parties  to  it,  the  wife  deriving  rank  from  the 
husband.  If  any  one  should  have  a  contrary  no- 
tion, as  that  a  relation  of  equality  exists  between 
the  natural  and  spiritual  elements  in  production, 
let  me  remind  him  that  the  productive  process 
is  always  primarily  a  process  of  elimination  or 
casting  out,  and  only  subsequently  one  of  assimi- 
lation or  building  up.  'The  desire  of  the  wife  is 
to  the  husband^  and  he  shall  rule  over  her.  The 
sculptor  calls  his  statue  forth  out  of  the  marble 
by  a  gradual  process  of  elimination  or  rejection : 
not  by  cherishing  his  material,  but  by  skilfully 


the  Symbolism  of  Marriage.  499 

and  firmly  rejecting  it.  Nothing  can  be  more 
strikingly  disparate  and  incommensurate  in  them- 
selves, than  a  sculptor's  genius  on  the  one  hand, 
and  a  brute  block  of  marble  on  the  other.  Yet 
the  statue,  which  unites  in  itself  these  discordant 
things  so  perfectly  as  to  obliterate  every  vestige 
of  the  original  disproportion,  could  never  be  able 
to  do  this,  unless  one  of  the  elements  was  essen- 
tially superior,  the  other  inferior;  unless  one  com- 
manded and  the  other  obeyed  ;  unless  one  were 
object  and  the  other  subject.  The  resultant  form 
in  all  prolification  is  high  or  low,  perfect  or  im- 
perfect, energetic  or  feeble,  just  as  the  mother  is 
first  the  wife;  that  is  to  say,  just  as  the  maternal 
or  productive  element  merges  and  disappears 
in  its  paternal  or  prolific  one  :  as  in  the  statue, 
for  example,  the  material  marble  becomes  utterly 
wrought  and  taken  up  into  ideal  form.  If  the 
form  imposed  by  the  sculptor  completely  ravish 
—  swallow  up  —  glorify  into  its  own  ideal  pro- 
portions —  the  material  supplied  by  the  marble, 
so  that  you  can  nowhere  put  your  finger  and  say, 
"  Here  substance  dominates  form,  or  nature  rebels 
against  art :  "  the  work  is  perfect  and  challenges 
immortal  approbation.  But  if  the  form  any- 
where allow  the  substance  to  peep  out,  so  that 
you  can  say,  "  Here  is  muscle  and  there  is  mar- 
ble :  "  if  in  other  words  the  sculptor's  genius  has 
not  been  able  to  compel  the  marble  into  ideal 
form  so  thoroughly,  as  that  you  shall  never  once 
think  of  it  as  rebellious  but  only  as  completely 
subjugated  to  his  skill :  then  the  work  is  imper- 
fect, and  invites  to  new  enterprise.     In  looking 


500  Marriage  typifies  the  Union  of 

at  a  perfect  work  of  Art,  you  never  think  of  di- 
viding your  admiration  between  the  artist  and 
nature  :  on  the  contrary  you  bestow  it  all  upon 
the  artist ;  because  you  know  that  what  he  gets 
from  nature  is  never  furtherance  but  always  op- 
position; so  that  his  genius  avouches  its  purity 
in  fact  in  the  exact  ratio  of  its  invention  or 
power  to  overcome  difficulties.  Art  is  the  glo- 
rified or  resurgent  form  of  man's  activity,  be- 
cause like  all  resurrection  ft  implies  its  subject's 
previous  death  to  a  lower  form  of  action  :  the 
artist  being  pronounced  artist  and  not  simple 
craftsman  exclusively  by  his  originality,  which 
is  his  power  to  unlearn  tradition,  and  undo  or 
supersede  all  that  was  ever  done  before  him.  In 
a  perfect  work  of  art  accordingly  the  substance 
is  wholly  swallowed  up  of  the  form  :  what 
is  spiritual  in  it  completely  glorifies  or  transfig- 
ures what  is  natural  and  material :  so  as  that  out 
of  two  things  so  unequal  and  discordant  in  se  as 
a  sculptor's  genius  and  a  brute  unconscious  block 
of  marble,  a  third  thing  is  generated  so  Divinely 
perfect  or  at  one  with  itself  as  to  defy  analysis, 
and  forbid  the  wit  of  all  mankind  to  discern 
what  or  how  much  belongs  to  the  one  parent, 
what  or  how  much  to  the  other. 

Precisely  so  it  is  with  our  perfected  conscious- 
ness, with  our  spontaneous  life,  with  whatsoever 
we  do  from  delight  or  attraction.  Infinite  and 
finite  are  so  livingly  united,  so  lovingly  wedded 
and  bedded  within  the  periphery'  of  our  sponta- 
neity, within  all  the  range  of  our  esthetic  life 
and  action,  that  it  is  sheer  nonsense  to  attempt  a 


Infinite  and  Finite  in  true  Manhood.     501 

logical  divorce  of  them,  by  saying  where  one 
begins  and  the  other  leaves  off.  The  true  son 
of  God  wears  a  garment  without  seam.,  woven  from 
the  top  throughout.,  and  which  cannot  therefore  be 
rent  or  divided,  one  half  to  God,  the  other  to 
Nature.  You  might  more  easily  divide  heat 
from  light  in  the  solar  ray,  by  gazing  stupidly  at 
the  sun.  Art  announces  a  marriage  so  perfect,  a 
union  so  dazzling,  between  the  Divine  and  the 
human  natures,  between  God's  fulness  and  man's 
want,  as  utterly  to  forbid  analysis,  and  put  ped- 
antry consequently  out  of  countenance.  The 
child  of  the  marriage  is  so  intensely  himself  or 
individualized  —  both  parents  are  so  exquisitely 
blent  and  melted  in  all  the  length  and  breadth, 
in  all  the  height  and  depth  of  his  characteristic 
action  —  that  he  is  indeed  absolutely  sure,  until 
his  spiritual  life  dawns  within  him,  to  lose  sight 
of  the  modest  unostentatious  principal,  and  recog- 
nize only  the  gorgeous  overpowering  accessory. 
In  fact  our  perfected  or  associate  conscious- 
ness, our  aesthetic  life  and  action  :  that  new  and 
regenerate  nature  in  us  which  avouches  the  Prov- 
idential reconciliation  of  the  twin  antagonist  ele- 
ments of  our  consciousness  —  church  and  state, 
self  and  the  neighbor,  interest  and  duty  —  in  a 
faultless  society  or  fellowship  among  men :  so 
completely  fuses  in  the  bosom  of  its  own  unity 
God  and  Nature,  infinite  and  finite,  that  it  is  of 
no  practical  account  to  anybody  but  myself  (and 
this  only  with  reference  to  my  immortal  possi- 
bilities), which  element  I  emphasize  in  the  trans- 
action ;  whether  the  more  obvious  maternal,  or 


502      IVhat  has  so  long  blinded  us   to  the 

the  less  obvious  paternal,  one  ;  whether  the 
grandly  creative  element,  or  the  simply  consti- 
tutive one.  So  palpably  true  is  all  this,  that 
grave  apoplectic  divines,  and  light  ambitious 
men  of  science,  have  only  to  follow  their  various 
bent,  and  warmly  espouse  either  the  naturalistic 
or  spiritualistic  hypothesis,  in  order  to  insure 
them  an  attentive  audience  and  a  very  consider- 
able repute  with  their  respective  factions,  as 
champions  of  distressed  Truth :  though,  sooth 
to  say,  poor  Truth  herself^  inasmuch  as  she  must 
be  wholly  unhurt  by  any  man's  or  any  set  of 
men's  contempt,  is  never  likely  to  be  too  much 
flattered  by  any  man's  or  any  set  of  men's  ad- 
hesion. 

Why  have  we  all  been  so  long  befogged  as 
to  these  spiritual  or  philosophic  contents  ot  Rev- 
elation '?  Why  have  we  been  so  hopelessly 
blind  to  its  grand  humanitary  scope  and  sub- 
stance ?  For  no  other  reason  than  the  church's 
superstitious,  because  exclusive,  regard  for  its 
letter.  Our  intelligence  has  become  so  artificial 
and  wooden,  so  warped  from  the  pure  spirit  of 
the  truth,  by  the  long  bondage  which  the  church 
has  kept  us  under  to  the  letter,  that  I  doubt 
not  the  heathen  are  capable  of  a  readier  insight 
into  the  proper  spirituality  of  the  Divine  name, 
than  we.  Of  course  we  felicitate  ourselves  over 
the  heathen  in  possessing  the  letter  of  Reve- 
lation. But  if  a  man  gather  a  rich  harvest  of 
nuts  only  to  store  them  away  in  his  garret,  and 
never  permit  one  of  them  to  be  cracked,  wherein 
is  he  better  off  than  his  neighbor  who  perchance 


spiritual  Contents  of  Revelation?        503 

has  gathered  none  *?  More  than  this  :  if  a  man 
lay  by  a  store  of  eggs  and  never  permit  them 
to  be  consumed  or  hatched,  is  he  not  greatly 
worse  off  than  his  destitute  neighbor,  who  has 
no  such  perishable  property  on  hand,  to  menace 
him  with  all  manner  of  unsavory  consequences, 
the  moment  he  attempts  to  put  it  to  any  reason- 
able human  use  *? 

The  letter  of  Revelation  has  doubtless  proved 
inestimably  advantageous  to  our  civilization; 
but  the  most  orderly  citizenship  is  as  remote  from 
spontaneous  or  spiritual  manhood,  as  baked  ap- 
ples are  from  ripe  ones.  Compared  with  heathen 
nations  we  are  indeed  as  baked  apples  to  green ; 
but  I  do  not  see  that  apples  plucked  green  from 
the  tree  and  assiduously  cooked,  as  we  have  been, 
are  near  so  likely  to  ripen  in  the  long  run,  as 
those  which  are  still  left  hanging  upon  the  boughs, 
exposed  to  God's  unstinted  sun  and  air.  We 
manage  to  maintain  our  egregious  self-compla- 
cency unperturbed  by  vehemently  compassion- 
ating the  heathen,  and  sending  out  missionaries 
to  convert  them  to  our  foolish  ecclesiastical  hab- 
its :  precisely  as  if  a  baked  apple  should  begrudge 
its  fellows  their  natural  ripening,  and  beg  them 
also  to  come  and  sputter  their  indignant  life  away 
under  the  burning  summer  of  the  oven,  under 
the  mellowing  autumn  of  the  bake-pan.  In  fact 
the  heathen  I  suspect  find  it  difficult  to  regard  us 
yet  even  as  baked  fruit.  Our  ungenerous  over- 
bearing and  polluting  intercourse  with  them  fits 
them  rather  to  regard  us  only  as  very  rotten  fruit. 
Whether  baked   or   rotten,  however,  we  are   in 


504  The  Church's  Superstition. 

either  case,  so  far  as  our  ecclesiastical  and  polit- 
ical manners  are  concerned,  past  the  chance  of 
any  inward  or  spiritual  ripening.  So  far  as  our 
ecclesiastical  conscience  is  concerned  especially, 
there  doesn't  seem  one  drop  of  honest  native 
unsophisticated  juice  left  in  us.  If  there  were, 
could  we  be  so  content  year  in  and  year  out  to 
see  our  clergy,  heterodox  and  orthodox,  alter- 
nately cuff  and  clout  God's  sacred  word  —  which 
is  inwardly  all  alive  and  leaping  with  spiritual 
or  universal  meaning  —  as  if  it  were  some  puny 
brat  of  man's  begetting,  some  sickly  old-wives' 
tale,  some  vapid  and  senile  tradition,  destitute 
even  of  a  fabulous  grace  and  tenderness  *? 


And  after  these  things  T  saw  another  angel  come  down  from 
heaven,  having  great  power  ;  and  the  earth  was  lightened  with  his 

And  he  cried  mightily  with  a  strong  voice,  saying,  Babylon  the 
great  is  fallen,  is  fallen,  and  is  become  the  habitation  of  devils,  and 
the  hold  of  every  foul  spirit,  and  the  cage  of  every  unclean  and 
hateful  bird. 

For  all  nations  have  drunk  of  the  wine  of  the  wrath  of  her  for- 
nication, and  the  kings  of  the  earth  have  committed  fornication  with 
her,  and  the  merchants  of  the  earth  are  waxed  rich  through  the 
abundance  of  her  delicacies. 

And  I  heard  another  voice  from  heaven,  saying,  Come  out  of 
her,  my  people,  that  ye  be  not  partakers  of  her  sins,  and  that  ye  re- 
ceive not  of  her  plagues. 

For  her  sins  have  reached  unto  heaven,  and  God  hath  remembered 
her  iniquities. 

Reward  her  even  as  she  rewarded  you,  and  double  unto  her 
double  according  to  her  works  :  in  the  cup  which  she  hath  filled  fill 
to  her  double. 

How  much  she  hath  glorified  herself,  and   1  ved  deliciously,  so 


Gloria  in  Ex  re  Is  is  Domino.  c^o^ 

much  torment  and  sorrow  give  her :  for  she  saith  in  her  heart,  I  sit  a 
queen,  and  am  no  widow,  and  shall  see  no  sorrow 

Therefore  shall  her  plagues  come  in  one  day,  death,  and  mourn- 
ing, and  famine  :  and  she  shall  be  utterly  burned  with  fire  :  for  strong 
is  the  Lord  God  who  judgeth  her. 

And  the  kings  of  the  earth  who  have  committed  fornication  and 
lived  deliciously  with  her,  shall  bewail  her,  and  lament  for  her,  when 
they  shall  see  the  smoke  of  her  burning. 

Standing  afar  otF  for  the  tear  of  her  torment,  saying,  Alas,  alas, 
that  great  city  !    for  in  one  hour  is  thy  judgment  come  ! 

And  the  merchants  of  the  earth  shall  weep  and  mourn  over  her; 
for  no  man  buyeth  their  merchandise  any  more  : 

The  merchandise  ot  gold,  and  silver,  and  precious  stones,  and 
of  pearls,  and  fine  linen,  and  purple,  and  silk,  and  scarlet,  and  all 
sweet  wood,  and  all  manner  vessels  of  ivory,  and  all  manner  vessels 
of  most  precious  wood,  and   of  brass,  and  iron,  and  marble. 

And  cinnamon  and  odours,  and  ointments,  and  frankincense,  and 
wine,  and  oil,  and  fine  flour,  and  wheat,  and  beasts,  and  sheep,  and 
horses,  and  chariots,  and  slaves,  and  souls  of  men. 

And  the  fruits  that  thy  soul  lusted  after  are  departed  from  thee, 
and  all  things  which  were  dainty  and  goodly  are  departed  from  thee, 
and  thou  shalt  find  them  no  more  at  all. 

The  merchants  of  these  things,  which  were  made  rich  by  her, 
shall  stand  afar  off  for  the  fear  of  her  torment,  weeping  and  wailing. 

And  saying,  Alas,  alas,  that  great  city,  that  was  clothed  in  fine 
linen,  and  purple,  and  scarlet,  and  decked  with  gold  and  precious 
stones,  and  pearls  ! 

For  in  one  hour  so  great  riches  is  come  to  nought!  And  every 
shipmaster,  and  all  the  company  in  ships,  and  sailors,  and  as  many 
as  trade  by  sea,  stood  afar  off. 

All  cried  when  they  saw  the  smoke  of  her  burning,  saying.  What 
city  is  like  unto  this  great  city  ! 

And  they  cast  dust  on  their  heads,  and  cried,  weeping  and  wail- 
ing, saying,  Alas,  alas,  that  great  city,  wherein  were  made  rich  all 
that  had  ships  in  the  sea  by  reason  of  her  costliness  !  for  in  one  hour 
is  she  made  desolate  ! 

Rejoice  over  her,  thou  heaven,  and  ye  holy  apostles  and  prophets  ; 
for  God  hath  avenged  you  on  her. 

And  a  mighty  angel  took  up  a  stone  like  a  great  millstone,  and 
cast  it  into  the  sea  saying.  Thus  with  violence  shall  that  great  city 
Babylon  be  thrown  down,  and  shall  be  found  no  more  at  all. 

And  the  voice  of  harpers,  and  musicians,  and  of  pipers,  and 
trumpeters,  shall  be  heard  no  more  at  all  in  thee  ; 

And  the  light  of  a  candle  shall  shine  no  more  at  all  in  thee  ;  and 
the  voice  of  the  bridegroom  and  of  the  bride  shall  be  heard  no  mere 
at  all  in  thee  :  for  thy  merchants  were  the  great  men  of  the  earth ; 
for  by  thy  sorceries  were  all  nations  deceived. 


506  Gloria  in  Excelsis  Domino. 

And  in  her  was  found  the  blood  of  prophets,  and  of  saints,  and 
of  all  that  were  slain  upon  the  earth. 

And  after  these  things  I  heard  a  great  voice  of  much  people  in 
heaven,  saying.  Alleluia,  Salvation,  and  glory,  and  honor,  and  power, 
unto  the  Lord  our  God  : 

For  true  and  righteous  are  his  judgments  :  for  he  hath  judged  the 
great  whore,  which  did  corrupt  the  earth  with  her  fornication,  and 
hath  avenged  the  blood  of  his  servants  at  her  hand  ! 

And  again  they  said.  Alleluia  !  And  her  smoke  rose  up  for  ever 
and  ever. 

And  the  four  and  twenty  elders  and  the  four  beasts  fell  down 
and  worshipped  God  that  sat  on  the  throne,  saying.  Amen  ;  Alle- 
luia ! 

And  a  voice  came  out  of  the  throne,  saying,  Praise  our  God, 
all  ye  his  servants,  and  ye  that  fear  him,  both  small  and  great. 

And  I  heard  as  it  were  the  voice  of  a  great  multitude,  and  as 
the  voice  of  many  waters,  and  as  the  voice  of  mighty  thunderings, 
saying,  Alleluia  :  for  the  Lord  God  Omnipotent  reigneth  ! 

Let  us  be  glad  and  rejoice,  and  give  honour  to  him  :  for  the 
marriage  of  the  Lamb  is  come,  and  his  wife  hath  made  herself 
ready  ! 

And  I  saw  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth  :  for  the  first 
heaven  and  the  first  earth  were  passed  away  ;  and  there  was  no 
more  sea. 

And  I  John  saw  the  holy  city,  new  Jerusalem,  coming  down 
from  God  out  of  heaven,  prepared  as  a  bride  adorned  for  her  hus- 
band. 

And  I  heard  a  great  voice  out  of  heaven  saying.  Behold  the  tab- 
ernacle of  God  is  with  men,  and  he  will  dwell  with  them,  and  they 
shall  be  his  people,  and  God  himself  shall  be  with  them,  and  be 
their  God. 

And  God  shall  wipe  away  all  tears  from  their  eyes  ;  and  there 
shall  be  no  more  death,  neither  sorrow,  nor  crying,  neither  shall 
there  be  any  more  pain  :  for  the  former  things  are  passed  away. 

And  there  came  unto  me  one  of  the  seven  angels — and  talked 
with  me  saying.  Come  hither,  I  will  shew  thee  the  bride,  the 
Lamb's  wife. 

And  he  carried  me  away  in  the  spirit  to  a  great  and  high  moun- 
tain, and  shewed  me  that  great  city,  the  holy  Jerusalem,  descending 
out  of  heaven  from  God,  having  the  Glory  of  God. 

And  I  saw  no  temple  therein  :  for  the  Lord  God  Almighty  and 
the  Lamb  are  the  temple  of  it. 

And  the  city  had  no  need  of  the  sun,  neither  of  the  moon,  to 
shine  in  it  :  for  the  Glory  of  God  did  lighten  it,  and  the  Lamb  is 
the  light  thereof. 


Gloria  in  Excelsis  Domino.  ^07 

And  the  nations  of  them  which  are  saved  shall  walk  in  the  light 
of  it  :  and  the  kings  of  the  earth  do  bring  their  glory  and  honour 
into  it. 

And  the  gates  shall  not  be  shut  at  all  by  day  :  for  there  shall  be 
no  night  there. 

And  they  shall  bring  the  glory  and  the  honour  of  the  nations  into 
it. 

And  there  shall  in  no  wise  enter  into  it  anything  that  defileth, 
neither  whatsoever  worketh  abomination,  or  maketh  a  lie  :  but  they 
which  are  written  in  the  Lamb's  book  of  life. 

And  he  shewed  me  a  pure  river  of  water  of  life,  clear  as  crystal, 
proceeding  out  of  the  throne  of  God  and  of  the  Lamb. 

In  the  midst  of  the  street  of  it,  and  on  either  side  of  the  river, 
was  there  the  tree  of  life,  which  bare  twelve  manner  of  fruits,  and 
yielded  her  fruit  every  month  :  and  the  leaves  of  the  tree  were 
for  the  healing  of  the  nations. 

And  there  shall  be  no  more  curse:  but -the  throne  of  God  and 
of  the  Lamb  shall  be  in  it  ;  and  his  servants  shall  serve  him  : 

And  they  shall  see  his  face  ;  and  his  name  shall  be  in  their  fore- 
heads. 

And  there  shall  be  no  night  there ;  and  they  need  no  candle, 
neither  light  of  the  sun  ;  for  the  Lord  God  giveth  them  light  :  and 
they  shall  reign  for  ever  and  ever. 

And  he  said  unto  me.  These  sayings  are  faithful  and  true. 

Seal  not  the  sayings  of  the  prophecy  of  this  book,  for  the  time  is 
at  hand. 

T  Jesus  have  sent  mine  angel  to  testify  unto  you  these  things  in 
the  churches.  I  am  the  root  and  offspring  of  David  ;  the  bright 
and  morning  star. 

And  the  spirit  and  the  bride  say,  come  !  And  let  him  that  hear- 
eth  say,  come  !  And  let  him  that  is  athirst  come  ;  and  whosoever 
will,  let  him  take  the  water  of  life  freely. —  Revelation,  xviii., 
xix.,  xxi.,  and  xxii.  chapters  in  part. 

The  Lord  shall  reign  forever,  even  thy  God,  O  Zion  !  unto  all 
generations.     Alleluia  !  —  Psalm  cxlvi.,  lo. 


APPENDIX. 


NOTE    A.     Page   149. 

I  HOPE  that  none  of  my  readers,  more  attentive  to 
the  sound  than  the  sense  of  words,  will  suspect  me  of 
irreverence  towards  what  is  called  "  the  moral  law," 
meaning  the  law  of  the  Ten  Commandments.  I  certain- 
ly mean  by  "  moral  manhood  "  something  quite  distinct 
from  that  most  real  manhood  which  stands  in  our  interior 
conscientious  reverence  for  God's  word.  This  is  an  ex- 
clusively spiritual  manhood,  because  the  purpose  of  the 
law  (as  might  be  argued  simply  from  the  negative  tenor 
of  its  injunctions)  being  not  to  nourish  pride  in  the 
votary  but  humility,  not  to  confer  righteousness  but 
only  to  give  a  knowledge  of  sin,  he  who  in  his  inter- 
course with  it  should  find  his  moral  character  aggran- 
dized rather  than  diminished,  would  manifestly  stamp 
the  purpose  of  the  law  with  folly.  I  mean  by  "  moral 
manhood  "  that  purely  sensuous  and  fallacious  judgment 
of  ourselves  and  other  men  which  imports  that  we  are 
something  in  ourselves,  or  absolutely,  and  irrespective 
of  our  relations  to  our  kind.  Neither  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments, nor  any  other  Divine  word,  were  ever  de- 
signed to  foster  this  insane  pretension.  Human  pride 
and  ignorance  are  sure  to  divide  one  man  from  another 
quite  sufficiently  :  the  Ten  Commandments  (or  con- 
science) were  given  to  us  not  to  inflame  this  disunion 
but  to  obliterate  it  forever,  by  teaching  those  who  are 


510  Jppendix. 

most  prone  to  it,  that  all  men,  whatever  be  their  moral 
or  outward  differences  one  from  another,  are  spiritually 
of  one  blood  in  God's  sight,  being  all  alike  full  of  inmost 
theft  adultery  cruelty  and  falsehood. 


NOTE   B.      Page  202. 

This  is  why  the  Divine  love  towards  us  naturally,  is 
eternally  active  :  because  it  can  never  be  satisfied.  It 
could  be  satisfied  only  in  thoroughly  delivering  us  from 
evil  :  but  as  such  deliverance  would  involve  the  destruc- 
tion of  our  natural  identity  or  self-consciousness,  it  neces- 
sarily restricts  itself  to  the  perpetual  delight  of  subor- 
dinating our  evil  to  its  own  good  :  so  vivifying  human 
history,  or  making  it  immortal.  The  same  considera- 
tions explain  too  the  reason  why  so  many  brutal  husbands 
come  to  hate  the  wives  who  were  once  dear  to  them; 
for  having  no  truer  and  deeper  sympathy  with  them  than 
this  low  bond  of  personal  admiration  or  affection  supplies, 
they  no  sooner  find  the  persons  of  their  wives  legally 
made  over  to  them  in  absolute  possession,  than  their  af- 
fection dies  out.  People  of  an  interior  quality  accept  the 
fact,  and  seek  in  each  other  a  sacreder  communion  than 
they  might  otherwise  perhaps  have  aspired  to,  a  com- 
munion in  all  gentleness,  forbearance,  peace,  and  inno- 
cence. But  the  mass  of  men  chafe  under  the  disappoint- 
ment, and  if  they  are  men  of  disorderly  lives,  visit  it 
upon  their  innocent  companions,  so  exposing  themselves 
to  the  vengeance  of  a  community  which  is  still  too  stu- 
pid to  see,  that  it  is  only  its  own  inhumanity  which  is 
primarily  at  fault. 


Appendix.  5 1 1 


NOTE   C.      Page  205. 

Morality,  which  is  the  demand  of  a  personal  right- 
eousness in  man,  finds  its  only  true  fulfilment,  as  Christ 
taught,  in  the  social  sentiment,  the  sentiment  of  human 
brotherhood.  "  Whoso  does  unto  others  as  he  would  have 
others  do  unto  him^  fulfils  all  law  and  prophecy."  And 
clearly  no  one  does  this  who  does  not  cordially  cherish 
or  livingly  obey  the  sentiment  of  human  fellowship,  of 
human  equality.  The  moral  history  of  the  race  has 
thus  no  end  beyond  the  actual  evolution  of  a  universal 
human  fellowship,  the  inauguration  oi  a  perfect  society 
among  men,  in  which  each  shall  be  deemed  the  exact 
equal  of  all  the  rest,  and  the  entire  social  force  conse- 
quently become  the  guarantee  of  the  widest  justice  to 
every  individual  member.  Foolish  European  popes  and 
potentates  think  they  may  dodge  this  Divine  destiny; 
and  even  our  own  miniature  editions  of  these  civic  and 
ecclesiastic  grandeurs  feel  that  they  too  are  called  upon 
in  their  feeble  duodecimo  way  to  pooh-pooh  it.  But 
while  He  who  sitteth  in  the  heavens  laughs  at  the  for- 
mer,  and  has  them  in  derision.  He  sees  perfectly  well 
that  the  latter  will  be  most  happy  to  accommodate  them- 
selves to  the  popular  aura  on  the  subject,  whenever 
wherever  and  however  it  shall  manifest  itself.  It  con- 
stitutes in  fact  the  precise  advance  which  our  Church 
and  State  have  made  upon  the  European  model  of  those 
institutions,  that  our  priests,  being  destitute  of  all  power 
God-ward,  are  unable  to  communicate  any  sacredness 
to  our  rulers  man-ward.  It  is  true  that  multitudes  of 
people,  having  no  conception  of  our  approaching  social 
expansion,  fancy  that  we  are  Providentially  destined  to 
a  much  finer  ecclesiastical  and  political  development 
than  has  ever  been  known  in  Europe.  The  whole  no- 
tion is  intensely  incongruous.  We  are  utterly  without 
a  priesthood  in  the  ecclesiastical  sense  of  that  institu- 
tion ;  utterly  without  a  government  in  the  political  sense 


5 1  2  Jppendix. 

of  that  institution.  Ecclesiastically  considered  the  priest 
is  ordained  to  offer  gifts  and  sacrifices  for  sins  ;  but 
there  is  no  such  fanatical  pretension  possible  on  the 
part  of  our  plain  shame-faced  humane  ministers.  It 
does  not  legitimately  exist  outside  of  the  catholic  church, 
where  it  exists  only  as  a  tradition.  Our  priests  are  mere 
popular  orators,  having  not  the  slightest  authoritative 
claim  upon  any  man's  attention  or  regard,  and  depend- 
ing therefore  for  their  influence  solely  upon  their  ability 
spiritually  to  interpret  the  great  facts  of  history  and  of 
nature.  And  a  government,  in  the  political  sense  of  that 
institution,  does  not  exist  as  here  wholly  by  the  will  of 
the  governed,  but  by  an  alleged  Divine  right  or  appoint- 
ment antedating  history,  and  attested  by  priestly  conse- 
cration. Our  priests  have  a  much  more  exalted  because 
more  real  ministry  than  their  European  types,  which  is 
that  of  educating  the  popular  thought,  and  kindling  the 
popular  aspiration.  And  our  rulers  have  a  right  indis- 
putably more  Divine  than  is  exhibited  anywhere  else, 
that  of  reflecting  and  carrying  out  the  popular  will  which 
has  been  thus  originated.  In  short  we  are  proipe^ively 
for  the  first  time  in  history  a  true  human  society  or 
brotherhood,  in  which  every  man  will  be  inwardly  se- 
cure of  Heaven's  benediction,  and  outwardly  secure  of 
Nature's  allegiance,  by  simple  right  of  manhood  alone. 


NOTE    D.     Page  209. 


We  denounce  the  Romish  church  as  inhuman  for 
enjoining  abstinence  from  marriage  upon  its  *'  religious  " 
orders  ;  but  we  enact  the  same  inhumanity  in  making 
our  converts  believe  the  indulgence  of  their  purely 
natural  appetites  and  passions  to  be  sinful,  save  in  so  far 
as  it  is  conformed  to  an  arbitrary  conventional  standard. 
The  only  true  standard  of  purity  for  the  sexual  relations 


Appendix.  5 1 3 

is  marriage  ;  but  then  it  is  marriage  inwardly  as  well 
as  outwardly  ratified,  or  reflecting  the  unforced  re- 
ciprocal affection  of  its  subjects.  What  our  laws  allow 
to  be  marriage  is  one  thing,  often  a  very  nasty  one  ; 
what  marriage  is  in  itself,  or  to  the  apprehension  of  men 
who  are  somewhat  advanced  towards  self-respect  and 
respect  for  their  kind,  is  quite  another  thing.  Our  laws 
for  example,  the  laws  of  every  so-called  Christian  coun- 
try, permit  us  to  sell  our  daughters  —  provided  only  we 
employ  a  clergyman  to  gild  the  transaction  with  sacred 
words  and  call  it  a  proper  marriage  —  to  any  unclean 
wretch,  steeped  to  the  lips  in  practical  atheism,  whose 
pecuniary  reputation  enables  him  to  buy  them.  What 
sort  of  purity  between  the  sexes  does  marriage  thus  in- 
terpreted engender  ?  Let  our  brothels  answer.  Let 
the  crowd  of  painted  harlots  answer,  who  make  our 
Christian  streets  hideous  every  night  with  their  skulking 
allurements.  Let  the  annual  sacrifice  which  Christen- 
dom offers  up  to  the  merciless  xMoloch  of  its  civilization 
answer  :  the  sacrifice  of  myriads  of  innocent  unin- 
structed  youth,  victims  of  depraved  appetite,  of  morbid 
self-indulgence,  victims  of  that  fierce  incontinency  in 
every  form,  which  our  persistent  denial  of  God  in  Na- 
ture, and  our  insane  abandonment  of  it  to  the  devil,  in- 
fallibly condemn  them  to.  Let  our  popular  newspapers 
answer,  teeming  as  they  do  with  the  most  prurient  de- 
tails of  conjugal  infidelity  ;  with  hints  to  clandestine 
commerce  ;  with  enigmatic  notifications  of  adulterous 
meetings  ;  with  the  advertisements  of  abortionists,  and 
all  the  other  insignia  of  a  profitable  traffic  in  obscenity. 
These  are  the  fruits  which  legitimately  inhere  in  our 
conventional  marriage,  and  fitly  express  the  ineffectual 
stink  with  which  it  inwardly  reeks  towards  heaven. 

But  that  a  truer  marriage  sentiment  than  this  is  being 
enkindled  at  this  day  by  God's  spirit  in  the  bosom  of  univer- 
sal man,  is  known  I  hope  to  the  experience  of  very  many 
who  read  these  lines  :  the  sentiment  of  a  unity  so  Divine 
between  the  sexes  as  must  erelong  utterly  discharge  their 
33 


5 1 4  Jppendix. 

commerce  of  that  fierce  libidinousness  which  has  grown 
out  of  the  past  contemptuous  suppression  of  one  sex  to 
the  mere  physical  needs  of  the  other,  and  redeem  it  to 
heavenly  innocence  and  tenderness.  This  higher  mar- 
riage sentiment  is  not  boin  of  outward  want  but  of  in- 
ward fulness  ;  for  it  rigidly  presupposes  such  an  advance 
in  human  society  or  brotherhood,  as  will  have  lifted 
every  man  out  of  that  degrading  vassalage  to  Nature 
which  has  hitherto  characterized  him,  and  restored  him 
once  more  to  the  exclusive  allegiance  of  God  and  his 
fellows.  The  existing  legal  administration  of  marriage 
contemplates  the  institution  not  as  a  means  for  the  high- 
est possible  humanization  of  the  parties  to  it,  so  much 
as  a  sluice  for  our  natural  lusts.  A  man  enters  into  matri- 
mony because  he  cannot  otherwise  reputably  compass  the 
gratification  of  his  grossest  necessities.  In  this  way  the 
marriage  sentiment  has  become  so  hopelessly  degraded 
to  the  popular  understanding,  that  there  are  few  persons 
who  do  not  believe  that  the  institution  is  destitute  of  any 
internal  or  spiritual  bonds,  being  kept  in  honor  exclu- 
sively by  the  legal  sanctions  which  separate  it  from  har- 
lotry. With  such  men  chastity  means  the  literal  obser- 
vance of  law,  though  the  total  spirit  of  it  be  habitually 
and  foully  violated.  But  all  this  is  simply  preposterous. 
True  virtue  or  manhood  is  never  literal  or  legal,  but  al- 
ways spiritual.  It  stands  in  no  amount  of  conformity 
to  established  usage,  but  only  in  the  spirit  which  dictates 
such  conformity,  whether  a  spirit  of  freedom  or  one  of 
self-seeking.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  virtuous  or  vi- 
cious act  in  itself,  and  apart  from  the  temper  of  the  actor. 
Man  alone  is  virtuous  or  vicious,  and  his  action  is  one  or 
the  other,  only  as  it  is  colored  by  his  personality.  Thus 
chastity  is  not  an  act,  it  is  the  spirit  from  which  every 
action  should  proceed.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  an 
act  of  chastity,  but  only  acts  of  uncleanness.  All  our 
acts  are  alike  acts  of  uncleanness,  until  they  are  re- 
deemed by  that  spirit  of  chastity  which  is  incessantly 
vivifying   us    inwardly  from   God.      The  true    marriage 


Jppendix.  5 1 5 

sentiment  is  first  spiritual,  and  carnal  only  by  derivation 
from  that  ;  so  that  the  identical  acts  which  would  be 
unchaste  when  begotten  of  another  spirit,  become  now 
the  home  of  chastity.  In  truth  the  sentiment  is  so  in- 
wardly inflamed  by  God's  spotless  love  :  it  is  in  its  es- 
sence or  origin  so  interior  a  friendship,  so  profound  a 
bosom  fellowship  and  correspondence  between  man  and 
woman,  that  every  form  of  its  existence  or  outgoing  is 
of  necessity  chaste.  To  impose  outward  restraints 
upon  it :  to  say  to  it,  thou  shalt  not  do  this  or  that : 
is  simply  to  ignore  its  Divine  genesis,  and  miscon- 
ceive its  essential  innocence.  It  is  like  forbidding 
defilement  to  lilies,  ostentation  to  violets,  ferocity  to 
doves,  or  duplicity  to  sheep.  Of  its  own  essential  nature 
the  sentiment  abhors  nothing  more  than  the  reciprocal 
license  and  profanation  which  even  our  best  conven- 
tional conjugality  permits  to  its  subjects  ;  and  it  has 
consequently  no  more  assured  result  than  ultimately  to 
recover  the  now  blackened  and  burnt-up  earth  of  its 
abode,  to  the  stainless  peace  and  truth  and  purity  of 
heaven. 

It  is  this  new  and  better  marriage  sentiment  in  the 
popular  bosom,  which  authoritatively  claims  to  itself  the 
purification  of  the  sexual  instinct ;  which  bids  us  hence- 
forward teach  our  children  that  that  instinct  was  never 
given  for  its  own  sake,  but  only  as  the  transitory  earth 
of  an  enduring  heaven  ;  only  to  base  a  spiritual  charac- 
ter or  manhood  in  them  which  shall  be  vital  with  God's 
inmost  infinitude.  It  is  never  right  knowledge  which 
corrupts  or  perverts  our  action  ;  much  more  have  we 
to  dread  that  systematic  ignorance  upon  the  sacredest 
topics  which  is  enforced  as  a  prop  to  our  established  su- 
perstitions. "  Well-stated  knowledge,"  says  Dr.  Wil- 
kinson in  his  sensible  preface  to  Swedenborg's  treatise 
on  the  Organs  of  Generation,  "  did  never  yet  contrib- 
ute to  human  inflammation  ;  and  we  much  question 
whether  the  whole  silver-spade  story  with  which  we 
put  off  our  children's  queries  about  our  whence  be  not 


516  Jppendix. 

theoretically  fallacious  ;  and  whether  children  should 
not  be  told  the  truth  from  the  first  ;  that  before  desire 
and  imagination  are  born,  the  young  mind  may  receive 
in  its  cool  innocency  the  future  objects  of  powers  and 
faculties  which  are  to  be  subject  afterwards  to  such 
strong  excitements."  Especially  is  this  true  when  we 
give  our  children  habitually  to  know  that  all  their  natu- 
ral life  is  a  most  strict  education  for  a  better  one,  and 
that  there  is  accordingly  no  passion  or  appetite  of  their 
nature  which  this  Divine  use  does  not  inmostly  sanctify, 
does  not  render  infinitely  holy  and  sweet.  Is  that  a  sort 
of  knowledge  to  inflame  the  imagination,  or  lead  to  the 
abuse  of  nature  ?  That  the  healthful  use  of  our  natural 
organs  would  thereby  be  promoted,  is  highly  probable  ; 
and  so  far  am  I  from  dissimulating  the  probability  that  I 
truly  rejoice  in  it.  For  the  only  salvation  for  us  as  a 
race  —  our  sole  chance  of  resuscitation  to  immortal  pu- 
rity and  health  —  is,  that  coming  at  last  to  practise  what 
we  now  only  preach,  viz.  that  the  Most  High  dwelleth 
NOT  in  te?nples  made  with  hands^  we  turn  from  the  pom- 
pous and  illusory  shrines  whither  so  many  resort  for  the 
indulgence  of  a  morbid  devotion,  for  the  enjoyment  at 
best  of  an  imaginary  holy  moment,  and  consent  to  rec- 
ognize God's  living  altar,  the  only  visible  shrine  of  His 
holiness,  in  the  hitherto  defaced  deformed  and  degraded 
human  body  :  which  being  thus  for  the  first  time  in- 
wardly consecrated  and  made  spontaneously  submissive 
to  its  Divine  ends  and  uses,  will  put  on  sweetness,  health, 
and  beauty,  with  the  day,  and  carry  gospel  marrow  and 
fatness  into  every  lean  and  famished  place  of  God's  do- 
minion. The  use  of  our  natural  faculties  is  far  more 
outraged  by  their  wilful  disuse  than  by  their  habitual 
abuse.  Disuse  utterly  disorganizes  and  destroys  the  fac- 
ulty ;  abuse  only  enfeebles  it.  Both  are  bad  ;  only  one 
is  irremediable. 

Appetite  and  passion  never  exert  a  controlling  and 
therefore  degrading  influence,  until  they  have  been  ren- 
dered fierce  by  some  foolish  asceticism,  some  silly  vol- 


Jppendix.  5"  i  7 

untary  humility  on  our  part,  or  some  accidental  starva- 
tion. Reduce  the  appetites  to  a  famished  condition, 
imprison  them  as  you  do  a  tiger,  allowing  them  only  a 
stinted  measure  of  nutriment,  or  so  much  as  they  can 
compass  clandestinely,  and  of  course  you  insure  them  the 
tiger's  force  and  ferocity.  Thus  the  unhappy  and  un- 
handsome monk,  who  from  some  spiritual  insanity,  some 
morbid  ambition  to  achieve  an  extraordinary  personal 
holiness,  or  a  greater  nearness  to  God  than  common 
people  enjoy,  sets  himself  to  deny  and  starve  out  the 
most  honorable  and  benignant  of  our  natural  appetites, 
often  finds  his  interior  thought  polluted  by  the  most  un- 
clean images,  and  his  whole  life  turned  into  a  sordid 
conflict  with  the  basest  of  concupiscences  :  a  conflict 
from  which  happily  there  is  no  deliverance  but  in  the 
renunciation  of  his  proud  and  delusive  spiritual  aims. 
But  in  their  ordinary  normal  aspect,  when  they  are  not 
bedevilled  by  some  unseen  ghostly  interference,  growing 
out  of  this  ambition  of  a  preternatural  personal  sanctity, 
out  of  some  accidental  famine,  or  other  coerced  depri- 
vation of  their  liberty,  the  natural  appetites  and  passions 
are  a  solace  and  refreshment  to  our  spiritual  faculties, 
rather  than  a  burden.  Above  all  things  would  they  be 
so,  if  we  once  admitted  them  to  the  sunshine  of  God's 
recognition  ;  if,  clothed  with  His  smile  and  restored  to 
their  right  mind  by  His  cordial  benediction,  they  were 
permitted  henceforth  to  sit  undisturbed  at  His  feet:  /'.  e. 
fulfil  unimpeded  those  external  or  organic  uses  upon 
which  the  inmost  sanity  of  our  hearts  and  minds  is  con- 
tingent. 

Multitudes  of  thoughtful  people  are  asking  themselves 
the  question  :  How  the  merely  human  letter  of  marriage 
is  going  to  be  brought  at  last  into  harmony  with  its 
truly  Divine  spirit  ;  so  compelling  our  romancers  and 
dramatists  to  find  elsewhere  the  theme  of  their  tragic  or 
comic  inspiration.  Of  course  it  never  can  be  done  ex- 
cept by  legislatively  freeing  the  institution  of  everything 
that  practically  tends  to  make  it  a  byword  and   hissing. 


5  i  8  Jppendix. 

The  institution  of  paternity  once  gave  the  father  an  ab- 
solute property  in  his  child,  irrespective  of  God's  prior 
claims.  The  relation  is  still  administered  indeed  in  a 
very  faulty  way  ;  but  the  fault  lies  manifestly  in  the 
poverty  and  imbecility  of  our  existing  social  methods, 
and  does  not  attribute  itself  to  the  heart  of  the  parent. 
For  time  has  been  gradually  modifying  the  institution 
into  less  absolute  or  more  spiritual  form,  so  that  it  is  a 
rare  thing  now  to  see  any  very  gross  abuse  of  paternal 
power,  any  very  gross  constraint  of  the  child's  rightful 
freedom.  No  sensible  man  would  now  maintain  the 
child's  obligation  to  love  or  serve  a  parent,  who  should 
put  himself  in  habitually  unlovely  relations  to  the  child, 
or  violate  his  instinctive  self-respect.  In  a  word  the 
sanctity  of  the  child  in  a  social  estimation  is  becoming 
recognized  as  quite  equal  to  that  of  the  parent,  and  the 
sentiment  of  paternity  consequently  is  losing  much  of 
the  ferocity  which  characterized  it,  when  the  father  felt 
his  responsibility  wholly  unshared  and  unrelieved  by  so- 
ciety. 

Our  traditional  marriage-customs  in  like  manner  en- 
dow the  husband  with  a  property  which  is  still  much  too 
absolute  in  the  person  of  his  wife,  and  which  infallibly 
conflicts  with  God's  higher  claim  upon  her  allegiance. 
They  bind  the  wife,  that  is  to  say,  to  love  and  serve  the 
husband  without  regard  to  his  character  ;  though  he 
should  inflict  every  conceivable  outrage  upon  her  indeed, 
short  of  technical  infidelity.  The  unquestionable  claim 
of  God  upon  every  human  heart  is,  that  it  shall  love 
Him  supremely,  and  the  neighbor  subordinately  ;  that  it 
shall  first  of  all  acknowledge  the  infinite  or  what  is  of 
God  in  the  neighbor,  and  afterwards  the  finite,  or  what 
is  of  the  neighbor  himself.  Now  God's  supreme  mani- 
festation of  Himself,  as  we  have  seen  or  shall  see  in  the 
text,  is  in  our  individuality^  or  characteristic  worth  :  so 
that  character  in  another  is  what  we  are  supremely 
bound  to  love  and  cherish.  Subordinately  to  this  we 
may  do  the  amplest  justice  to  the  person's  temperament. 


Appendix.  j'lQ 

or  natural  gifts  :  to  his  genius,  his  intellect,  his  wit,  his 
piety,  his  humor,  his  energy,  his  manners  :  and  abound 
in  tender  pity  to  his  infirmities.  But  our  primary  alle- 
giance is  due  irresistibly  to  his  character,  or  to  the  spirit 
with  which  his  various  gifts  are  exercised.  We  cannot 
love  a  person  who  is  charaSieristically  unlovely  :  that  is 
to  say,  who  does  not  more  or  less  honestly  cultivate  a 
spiritual  approximation  to  the  Divine  spirit.  And  we 
have  no  business  therefore  to  bind  a  wife  to  her  husband 
absolutely,  and  irrespectively  of  his  character.  We  can 
only  do  this  at  the  risk  of  her  own  spiritual  degradation, 
and  God  almighty  will  sweep  all  our  civic  and  religious 
sanctities  into  the  dust-hole  of  men's  contempt,  long 
before  He  will  consent  to  the  jeoparding  of  that  interest 
in  any  one. 

What  then  is  the  remedy  ?  How  shall  we  reinstate 
marriage  in  men's  reverence,  and  rescue  it  from  the 
purely  hypocritical  patronage  it  receives  at  the  hands  of 
our  swarming  scribes  and  Pharisees  ?  The  answer  is 
very  simple,  namely  :  by  leaving  the  institution  more  in 
woman's  keeping,  and  less  in  man's  ;  by  making  her 
most  answerable  for  its  honor,  who  is  most  interested  in 
its  stability.  I  am  firmly  persuaded  that  all  our  exist- 
ing evils  in  the  conjugal  sphere,  and  all  the  disorder 
consequent  upon  these  evils  in  the  sphere  of  the  sexual 
relations  generally,  are  owing  to  the  fact,  that  man's 
influence  in  the  administration  of  marriage  is  still  unhap- 
pily so  paramount,  and  woman's  so  subordinate.  And 
the  only  remedy  consequently  for  these  evils  and  disor- 
ders, is,  that  our  legislators  proceed  at  once  and  boldly 
to  equalize  the  relation  of  the  wife  to  the  husband  in  the 
conjugal  bond,  by  suspending  divorce  upon  the  prayer  of 
the  wife  alone.  Nothing  short  of  this  will  equalize  the 
relation  of  the  sexes,  or  enable  the  woman  to  evince 
that  incontestable  spiritual  priority  in  the  realm  of  senti- 
ment with  which  God  and  nature  have  endowed  her, 
and  which  has  hitherto  been  kept  in  wrongful  and  rigid 
abeyance  to  man's  material  priority.     The  wife  is  not 


520  Jppendix. 

at  present  the  equal  of  her  husband  conjugally,  because, 
being  by  nature  less  brutal  than  he,  less  prone  to  sensu- 
ality, she  is  vastly  more  at  the  mercy  of  his  caprice  and 
infidelity.  What  is  manifestly  wanted  then  is,  that  the 
higher  or  spiritual  element  in  the  conjugal  relation  rep- 
resented by  the  wife,  be  released  from  its  immemorial 
domination  by  the  lower  or  material  element  represented 
by  the  husband,  and  invested  with  its  rightful  Divine 
primacy.  If  the  honor  of  marriage  were  thus  legisla- 
tively confided  to  woman,  as  it  assuredly  must  be  ere- 
long under  penalty  of  dying  out  altogether,  we  should 
then  see  for  the  first  time  in  history,  a  practical  admin- 
istration of  the  institution  which  would  not  only  vindi- 
cate the  strict  divinity  of  its  origin,  and  the  rightful 
spirituality  of  its  sanctions,  but  would  infallibly  concil- 
iate also  the  unaffected  love  and  homage  of  all  mankind. 


NOTE   E.     Page  236. 

I  KNEW  a  gentleman  some  years  ago  of  exemplary 
religiosity  and  politeness,  but  of  a  seasoned  inward  du- 
plicity, who  failed  in  business  as  was  supposed  fraudu- 
lently. He  was  in  the  habit  of  meeting  one  of  the 
largest  of  his  creditors  every  Sunday  on  his  way  to 
church,  where  his  own  voice  was  always  among  the 
most  melodious  to  confess  any  dmount  of  abstract  sins 
and  iniquities  ;  and  he  never  failed  to  raise  his  hat  from 
his  head  as  he  passed,  and  testify  by  every  demonstra- 
tive flourish  how  much  he  would  still  do  for  the  bare 
forms  of  friendship,  when  its  life  or  substance  was  fled. 
The  creditor  was  long  impatient,  but  at  last  grew  fran- 
tic under  this  remorseless  courtesy,  and  stopping  his 
debtor  one  day  told  him  that  he  would  cheerfully  aban- 
don to  him  the  ten  thousand  dollars  he  had  robbed  him 
of,  provided  he  would  forego  the  exhibition  of  so   much 


Appendix.  32 1 

nauseous  politeness.  Sir,  replied  the  imperturbable 
scamp,  I  would  not  forego  the  expression  of  my  duty  to 
you  when  we  meet,  for  twice  ten  thousand  dollars!  This 
is  very  much  our  case  religiously.  Whereas  if  we  would 
only  give  over  our  eternal  grimacing  and  posturing,  only 
leave  off  our  affable  but  odious  ducking  and  bowing  to 
our  great  creditor,  long  enough  to  see  the  real  truth  of 
the  case,  and  frankly  acknowledge  bankruptcy  utter 
and  fraudulent,  nothing  could  be  so  hopeful.  The  su- 
preme powers  are  infinitely  above  reckoning  with  us  for 
our  shortcomings,  if  we  would  only  have  the  manli- 
ness to  confess  spiritual  insolvency,  and  not  seek  any 
longer  to  hide  it  from  their  eyes  and  our  own,  under 
these  transparent  monkey-shines  of  a  mock  devotion  ; 
under  this  perpetual  promise  to  pay  which  never  comes 
to  maturity,  but  gets  renewed  from  Sunday  to  Sunday 
in  secula  seculorum.  God  does  not  need  our  labored 
civility,  and  must  long  ere  this  have  sickened  of  our 
vapid  doffing  of  the  hat  to  him  as  we  pass.  He 
seeks  our  solid  advantage,  not  our  ridiculous  patronage. 
He  desires  our  living  not  our  professional  humility  ; 
and  He  desires  it  only  for  our  sakes  not  His  own. 
He  would  fashion  us  into  the  similitude  of  His  perfect 
love,  only  that  we  might  enjoy  the  unspeakable  delights 
of  His  sympathetic  fellowship.  If  He  once  saw  us  to 
be  thus  spontaneously  disposed  towards  Him,  thus  gen- 
uinely qualified  for  the  immortal  participation  of  His 
power  and  blessedness.  He  would  I  am  sure  be  more 
than  content  never  to  get  a  genuflexion  from  us  again 
while  the  world  lasted,  nor  hear  another  of  our  dreary 
litanies  while  sheep  bleat  and  calves  bellow. 


522  Jppendix. 


NOTE    F.      Page  240. 

SwEDENBORG  describes  "the  world  of  spirits"  (as  he 
calls  it,  which  intervenes  between  "  the  spiritual  world  " 
proper  and  the  natural  world)  as  being  the  seat  and 
source  of  all  our  moral  power.  Thence  descend  all 
those  tiny  streams  of  influence  which  have  hitherto  fer- 
tilized the  moral  world.  The  pope  of  Rome  on  earth 
is  a  lifeless  puppet  compared  with  the  inflated  substance 
which  fills  and  rules  the  Rome  of  the  world  of  spirits  ; 
and  the  Russian  czar  and  the  German  emperors  and 
the  British  kings,  and  the  European  despots  universally, 
together  with  the  bustling  "  little  corporal  "  who  stung 
them  all  to  madness,  are  only  so  many  futile  wire-pulled 
manikins  beside  the  grim  originals  of  that  remorseless 
inner  sphere.  Thus,  when  we  die,  we  wake  without 
any  shock  or  lapse  of  consciousness  in  a  world  perfectly 
conformed  to  our  ideal.  If — believing  that  God  does 
really  commit  His  honor  to  another  —  we  have  been 
wont  to  swear  by  some  renowned  Stagirite,  by  some 
infallible  apostle  Paul,  by  some  ponderous  Kant,  or 
authoritative  Swedenborg,  we  shall  find  in  that  world 
plenty  of  pretenders  to  that  sanctified  repute,  and  be 
dragged  through  gutters  enow  before  we  learn  a  needful 
self-respect.  U  we  wilfully  conceive  that  human  life 
thrives  best  under  despotism  civil  and  religious,  we  shall 
have  a  chance  of  realizing  both  of  these  advantages  to 
our  heart's  desire.  If  we  persuade  ourselves  that 
heaven  consists  in  going  to  Paris  and  draining  the  cup 
of  pleasure  to  the  dregs,  we  find  there  a  Paris  perfectly 
accommodated  to  our  will,  and  bring  up  finally  in  hos- 
pitals whose  surgery  leaves  nothing  in  the  way  of  skill 
to  be  desiderated.  If  we  have  convinced  ourselves,  as 
some  of  our  divines  and  politicians  labor  to  do,  that 
slavery  is  a  Divinely  ordained  condition  for  men  of  a 
darker  hue  outwardly  than  we  are,  and  full  therefore  of  an 
interior  blessedness  to  all  who  religiously  undergo  it,  we 


Jppendix.  523 

shall  have  the  amplest  opportunities  of  essaying  that 
Divine  blessedness  also  ;  for  white  becomes  black  and 
black  white  in  that  world  without  the  slightest  observa- 
tion. 

Spiritually  to  be  a  white  man  means  to  be  clad  with 
innocence  and  peace  ;  means  to  be  incapable  of  serving 
oneself  at  another's  expense  :  as  spiritually  to  be  a  black 
man  means  to  be  armed  with  violence  and  deceit,  and 
ever  ready  to  seek  our  own  will  by  coercing  or  seducing 
that  of  others.  Thus  there  are  myriads  of  men  natu- 
rally white  who  are  spiritually  as  black  as  soot,  and  who 
will  rise  up  after  death  in  that  world  where  soul  creates 
body,  with  hair  as  crisp,  lips  as  thick,  and  noses  as  flat, 
as  any  Cuffee  of  our  southern  rice-fields  :  and  what  is 
very  wonderful,  these  conceited,  because  self-made, 
"  niggers "  will  never  doubt  that  their  ebony  is  your 
only  veritable  mother-of-pearl.  Ah  !  that  mediatorial 
or  purgatorial  world  !  what  miracles  it  will  noiselessly 
work  !  what  crookednesses  it  will  straighten  !  what  in- 
equalities it  will  rectify  !  Swedenborg  saw  many  per- 
sons there  who  had  been  very  majestic  characters  indeed 
on  earth,  renowned  for  all  sorts  of  conventional  sanctity 
and  ability,  and  who  yet  had  cultivated  so  little  their  in- 
stincts of  human  brotherhood  here,  as  spiritually  to  ex- 
hibit no  evidence  of  corporeity  beyond  a  slight  mass 
of  hair  and  a  ^qw  glittering  teeth  !  Let  my  reader 
and  me  beware  of  following  any  multitude  whatever 
to  do  evil,  although  that  multitude  should  occupy  all 
the  pulpits  and  all  the  forums  in  the  land,  and  have 
power  even  to  put  us  in  the  White  House  at  Washing- 
ton. For  after  all  the  White  House  is  worth  only  a 
four  years'  shelter  to  any  one,  and  has  already  become, 
according  to  the  best  statistics,  so  befouled  by  unworthy 
occupation,  as  to  be  an  altogether  dubious  forecourt 
of  those  mansions,  undefiled  and  incorruptible,  which 
are  alone  worth  our  reasonable  aspiration. 


524  Jppendix. 


NOTE    G.     Page  346. 

Here  let  me  take  occasion  to  remind  any  reader 
whose  literary  prejudices  may  be  shocked  by  my  want 
of  reverence  for  accredited  names,  that  we  can  in  no 
way  so  poignantly  afFront  the  great  light  of  Truth  which 
enlightens  every  man  that  comes  into  the  world,  as  by 
practically  allowing  every  renowned  Tom  Dick  and 
Harry  a  patent-right  as  it  were  to  its  rays.  There  can 
be  no  monopoly  of  wisdom  where  each  of  us  is  at  best 
but  a  learner  or  receiver,  never  a  teacher  or  giver :  and 
surely  no  a  priori  obligation  can  be  shown  why  any  spe- 
cific person  should  be  wuh  respect  to  any  other  specific 
person  either  right  or  wrong.  There  are  no  papacies 
in  the  realm  of  knowledge  but  only  in  that  of  estab- 
lished ignorance  and  superstition  ;  and  it  is  high  time 
for  men  of  discernment  to  be  ashamed  of  that  servile 
ducking  to  success,  which  is  fast  turning  the  literary 
arena  into  a  nauseous  Flunkeydom.  iruth  confers 
upon  her  followers  the  only  legitimate  dignity  they  pos- 
sess, and  was  never  known  to  accept  a  tittle  from  them. 
It  is  moreover  extremely  puerile  to  need  reminding  that 
however  it  may  fare  in  mundane  pursuits,  it  is  yet  never 
true  in  spiritual  things  that  the  race  is  to  the  swift,  or 
the  battle  to  the  strong.  Human  prudence  is  a  syno- 
nyme  of  Divine  Providence  only  to  low  minds,  only  to 
men  whose  ends  are  so  purely  selfish  as  to  necessitate 
the  most  niggardly  conceptions  possible  of  the  Divine 
administration.  That  literary  men  should  lend  them- 
selves to  reflect  such  living  oracles  as  these,  and  com- 
placently repeat  that  "  to  fear  God  and  keep  your  pow- 
der dry"  are  recommendations  of  equal  value,  only 
proves  that  literary  men  have  renounced  the  spiritual 
traditions  of  the  race,  and  have  swung  round  to  the  old 
Pagan  conception  of  Deity  as  a  respecter  of  persons. 
Literature  in  fact  (and  this  is  the  tendency  of  all  the 
merely  Fine  Arts)  has  sunk  from  a  power  into  a  flat- 


Jppendix.  525" 

terer  of  power,  from  a  substance  into  a  shadow,  from  a 
life  into  a  memory  ;  feeding  so  contentedly  upon  the 
garbage  of  personalities  and  growing  so  gross  upon  the 
diet,  that  one  would  say  her  true  vocation  had  always 
been  mere  maid-of-all-worlc  to  the  booksellers. 


NOTE    H.     Page  457. 

The  strict  relation  of  maternity  which  science  bears 
to  our  intellectual  personality,  is  strikingly  exhibited 
in  that  giddiness  or  qualmishness  which  seizes  the 
mind,  when  it  has  begun  to  be  spiritually  quickened,  in 
view  of  the  warring  tumultuous  sea  of  facts  which  sci- 
ence endeavors  to  reduce  to  order.  Sea-sickness  is  but 
a  type  of  the  loathing  and  dejection  which  beset  the 
philosophic  stomach,  when  set  adrift  upon  this  restless 
heaving  ocean  of  knowledge,  with  no  more  command- 
ing foothold  of  doctrine,  than  is  supplied  by  what  men 
call  "  the  laws  of  nature."  These  so-called  laws  of 
nature,  far  from  inhering  in  nature,  exert  a  controlling 
power  over  her,  and  hence  can  only  be  conceived 
of  as  reflected  from  some  higher  source,  which  is  the 
mind  of  man.  Mere  men  of  science  themselves,  like 
Comte,  are  beginning  to  reverberate  this  philosophic 
instinct.  They  too  declare  that  these  so-called  "  laws 
of  nature "  are  not  any  substantive  forces  or  entities 
discoverable  in  nature,  but  only  certain  convenient  har- 
bors or  anchorages  which  the  mind  itself  constructs 
against  the  dreary  and  disgusting  difFuseness  of  natural 
fact. 

But  in  truth  what  we  call  "  the  laws  of  nature  "  are 
the  mind  itself  in  its  most  general  or  bodily  form,  /.  e. 
its  least  individual  and  spiritual  form.  For  the  mind  has 
a  generic  unity  as  well  as  a  specific  one  ;  a  common 
form  as  well   as  a  particular  one  ;  a  public  evolution  as 


526  Jppendix. 

well  as  a  private  one  ;  a  natural  existence  as  well  as  a 
spiritual  one  :  and  this  common  or  public  form  must  be 
wrought  out  to  its  full  measure  of  expansion,  before  the 
individual  or  private  form  can  perfectly  realize  itself,  or 
becomes  adequately  empowered  for  its  own  spiritual 
functions.  The  various  sciences,  each  aiming  in  its 
own  sphere  to  express  or  bring  out  the  spiritual  unity 
which  underlies  all  natural  variety,  are  only  so  many 
partial  embodiments  of  this  great  mental  corporeity  of 
the  race,  which  will  be  completely  illustrated  only  by 
the  great  mother-science  which  litters  all  the  special 
sciences,  namely :  the  science  of  human  society  or 
brotherhood.  Any  attempt  accordingly  to  explicate 
Nature  by  what  we  call  "  the  laws  of  nature  "  is 
sheerly  preposterous.  It  in  fact  suspends  such  expli- 
cation upon  a  previous  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  the 
human  mind  :  /.  e.  postpones  its  only  accurate  issue 
to  the  advent  of  a  true  philosophy  of  history,  which 
alone  exhibits  the  perfect  structure  of  the  mind.  To 
investigate  Nature  by  her  own  light  consequently,  or 
without  some  previous  and  commanding  doctrine  of 
Man  connecting  her  with  God,  is  like  putting  to  sea 
without  a  compass.  Every  such  inconsiderate  adven- 
turer is  tossed  mountain-high  on  the  waves  of  uncer- 
tainty ;  his  frail  bark  is  driven  hither  and  thither  by  all 
the  fierce  winds  of  contending  doctrine  ;  dark  clouds 
of  controversy  incessantly  obscure  the  pole-star  of  truth 
to  his  eye  ;  and  the  distracted  wanderer  soon  learns  that 
without  supernatural  help  and  guidance,  he  will  never 
again  touch  the  friendly  shore,  nor  clasp  wife  and  chil- 
dren to  his  bosom  more. 


Jppendix.  527 


NOTE    I.     Page  470. 

The  notion  here  denounced  is  the  latent  inspiration 
of  much  of  our  modern  theologic  speculation.  In  Dr. 
Bushnell's  popular  book  on  Nature  and  the  Supernatural, 
which  stands  in  the  same  relation  to  our  ordinary  charac- 
teristic theology  that  an  ox  fed  on  oil-cake  does  to  average 
beef,  it  vomits  forth  jets  of  lurid  flame  menacing  desola- 
tion to  every  green  thing  left  in  the  land.  How  impos- 
sible to  read  Dr.  B.'s  book,  where  this  diabolic  fantasy 
of  a  moral  righteousness  is  seen  shaping  the  universe 
according  to  its  own  lust,  and  where  accordingly  not 
only  man  but  God  himself  is  pictured  endlessly  strain- 
ing himself  out  of  all  Divine  peace  and  innocence  in 
order  to  achieve  some  still  unachieved  moral  distinction, 
without  a  menace  of  universal  tetanus  creeping  over  one 
vividly  distressing  to  contemplate  !  Who  can  imagine 
one  of  these  high-strung,  ravenous,  sinewy  aspirants  after 
personal  perfection,  whom  Dr.  Bushnell  delights  to 
paint  as  God's  true  children,  because  he  supposes  God 
himself  to  be  mainly  intent  on  that  sort  of  perfection, 
without  getting  a  very  near  presentiment  of  the  devil  ? 
To  think  of  a  set  of  high-stepping,  ring-boned,  spavined, 
self-riffhteous  wretches  like  these  ever  becomins;  *'  as 
little  children  !  "  It  would  be  easier  it  seems  to  me  for 
a  whole  caravan  of  camels  to  go  through  a  needle's 
eye- 
According  to  Swedenborg  the  Last  Judgment  of  God 
in  nature  is  specifically  intended  to  brush  away  these 
moralistic  cobwebs  from  the  mind,  and  save  unwary  f^ies 
from  getting  spiritually  entangled.  The  last  judgment,  he 
says,  which  took  place  in  the  world  of  spirits  about  a 
century  since,  and  which  abundantly  explains  the  enor- 
mous strides  the  world  has  been  making  smce  in  the 
way  of  freedom  and  the  consequent  development  of  in- 
dustry, *'  was  executed  only  upon  those  who  were  ex- 
ternally moral,  but  internally  not  spiritual.      It  was  not 


528  Jppendix. 

executed  upon  those  in  heaven  or  those  in  hell  ;  but 
only  upon  those  who  were  in  the  middle  between  heaven 
and  hell,  and  had  there  made  to  themselves  factitious 
heavens."-^  These  are  the  goats  mentioned  in  Matthew 
25,  who  say  Lord,  Lord,  but  do  nothing  of  what  the 
Lord  spiritually  enjoins.  They  do  their  works  to  be  seen 
of  men.  ''they  say  and  do  not.  They  shut  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  against  others.^  but  do  not  go  in  themselves. 
They  make  clean  the  outside  of  the  cup  and  platter.,  etc  , 
etc.  This  is  the  Babylon  of  Isaiah  and  the  Apocalypse 
which  is  cast  down  into  hell,  and  made  a  hereditary  pos- 
session of  the  bittern. 

The  reason  why  people  of  this  order  were  preserved 
and  tolerated  unto  the  day  of  the  last  judgment,  is  be- 
cause they  who  imitate  spiritual  life  in  externals  or  make 
it  visible  in  a  moral  life,  impress  the  vulgar  favorably, 
and  so  lead  numbers  of  the  simple  to  a  life  of  good, 
while  they  themselves  are  inwardly  ravening  wolves  : 
for  the  simple  in  heart  look  no  further  than  the  external 
or  what  meets  the  eyes.  Hence  all  such  people  were 
tolerated  in  the  world  of  spirits  from  the  commence- 
ment of  the  Christian  church  until  the  Last  Judgment. 
These  are  understood  in  the  Apocalypse  by  those  who 
are  not  of  the  first  resurrection.  They  lived  in  the 
world  in  external  not  in  internal  sanctity.  They  were 
just  and  sincere  for  the  sake  of  civil  and  moral  laws, 
but  not  for  the  sake  of  Divine  laws.  They  filled  vari- 
ous offices  and  did  uses  but  not  for  the  sake  of  uses. 
These  and  all  throughout  the  world  like  them  consti- 
tuted the  first  heaven.  It  was  such  a  heaven  as  the 
world  and  church  upon  earth  is,  among  those  who  do 
good  not  for  good's  sake,  but  from  fear  of  the  laws, 
and  the  loss  of  reputation  honor  and  wealth.  Men 
of  this  sort,  whose  external  sanctity,  whose  prating 
[sermonicatio]  about  Divine  things,  and  whose  sincerities, 
for  their  own  sake  and  that  of  the  world,  give  them  an 
air  of  spirituality  which  imposes  on  the  mass,  rush  into 
1  Doctrine  of  Faith,  64. 


Jppendix.  ^29 

every  kind  of  abomination  when  external  restraints  are 
loosed.  So  long  as  there  were  congregations  of  such 
spirits  between  heaven  and  the  world,  or  between  the 
Lord  and  the  ehurch,  man  was  unable  to  be  enlight- 
ened ;  for  all  illumination  comes  to  man  from  the  Lord 
by  an  inward  way,  and  these  morbid  accumulations  in 
the  world  of  spirits  cut  off  the  Divine  influx  as  the 
beams  of  the  sun  are  cut  off  by  a  black  interposing 
cloud.  And  since  accordingly  all  these  interposing  spir- 
itual clouds  have  been  dissipated  by  that  Divine  opera- 
tion in  the  world  of  spirits  or  the  interiors  of  the  mind 
which  is  called  the  Last  Judgment,  the  communication 
between  heaven  and  the  world,  or  the  Lord  and  the 
church,  has  been  restored.  To  outward  appearance 
the  state  of  the  world  may  remain  unchanged  ;  divided 
churches  may  continue  to  exist.  But  henceforth  the 
man  of  the  church  will  be  in  a  more  free  state  of  think- 
ing on  matters  of  faith,  or  spiritual  things  which  relate 
to  heaven,  because  spiritual  liberty  has  been  restored  to 
him.  For  all  things  in  the  heavens  and  hells 
ARE  NOW  reduced  INTO  ORDER  ;  and  everything  har- 
monic with  or  opposite  to  Divine  ideas  inflowed  only 
from  those  spheres.  The  angels  have  slender  hope  of 
the  men  of  the  Christian  church  welcoming  this  restored 
liberty,  but  much  of  some  nation  far  removed  from  the 
Christian  world  [about  3000  miles,  shall  we  say  ?],  which 
nation  is  such  that  it  is  capable  of  receiving  spiritual 
light,  and  of  being  made  a  celestial  spiritual  man  ;  and 
they  said  that  at  this  day  interior  Divine  Truths  are  re- 
vealed in  that  nation,  and  received  in  life  and  heart,  and 
that  it  worships  the  Lord  (livingly  of  course).  See  the 
Treatise  on  the  Last  'Judgment^  59~74  5  ^""^  Continua- 
tion^ 10-16. 

I  am  sincere  in  the  opinion  that  Swedenborg's  an- 
gels may  have  squinted  towards  this  side  of  the  At- 
lantic when  they  expressed  their  hope  in  reference  to 
the  new  or  living  church.  We  were  then  territorially 
far  remote  from  Christendom,  which  properly  compre- 
34 


530  Appendix. 

hends  only  the  seat  of  the  Roman  empire,  and  were 
already  beginning  to  experience  in  a  very  decided  man- 
ner that  interior  or  spiritual  remoteness,  that  new-born 
social  force  in  humanity,  which  erelong  resulted  in  our 
complete  political  and  ecclesiastical  enfranchisement 
from  Europe.  Of  course  when  the  angels  talk  of 
remoteness  they  have  no  idea  of  distance  in  space  and 
time,  but  only  of  difference  in  affection  and  thought : 
that  is  to  say,  of  spiritual  remoteness  :  so  that  by  a  na- 
tion far  removed  from  the  Christian  world,  they  can 
only  mean  a  political  constitution  so  distinct  from  that 
which  prevails  in  Christendom  as  permits  a  larger  ac- 
cess of  spiritual  life  to  the  people,  a  larger  influx  of  the 
spirit  of  human  fellowship.  Undoubtedly  at  the  time 
Swedenborg  was  enjoying  his  instructive  and  pleasant 
commerce  with  angelic  spirits,  we  were  still  European 
colonies  :  but  no  one  familiar  with  our  colonial  history 
has  here  to  learn,  that  the  principle  of  popular  sov- 
ereignty which  constitutes  our  political  difference  from 
the  polities  of  the  old  world,  germinated  as  vigorously 
in  the  colonial  conscience,  as  it  has  since  flowered  and 
fructified  in  the  national  one.  What  separates  us  toto 
ccelo  from  Europe  is  our  constitutional  recognition  of 
popular  sovereignty,  so  that  we  have  absolutely  no  me- 
diation left  between  us  and  God,  absolutely  no  priest- 
hood and  no  royalty.  The  priest  is  now  clearly  seen, 
by  every  one  of  the  least  spiritual  culture,  never  to  have 
been  anything  else  than  a  symbol  or  figure  of  the  un- 
recognized Divine  good  in  the  universe  of  man's  heart; 
and  the  king  to  have  been  only  a  figure  of  the  unrecog- 
nized Divine  truth  in  the  universe  of  man's  understand- 
ing. No  doubt  a  dense  shadow  of  Europe  has  managed 
to  project  itself  upon  our  soil.  The  intellectual  igno- 
rance we  have  been  under  with  respect  to  our  proper 
destiny  which  is  exclusively  social,  has  led  us  in  great 
part  to  imagine  ourselves  little  more  than  a  legitimate 
spawn  of  European  institutions,  popularly  modified  ;  so 
that  a  federative  Church,   made   up  of  any  number   of 


Appendix.  531 

competitive  and  reciprocally  wrangling  sects,  and  a 
federative  Polity,  made  up  of  any  number  of  competi- 
tive and  reciprocally  hostile  States,  have  had  power  to 
lift  their  bewildered  heads,  and  obscure  for  a  time  to  the 
popular  consciousness  its  own  rigidly  humanitary  temper 
and  aims. 

Do  I  complain  of  these  things  ?  God  forbid  !  For 
otherwise  we  must  have  lacked  chat  Providential  impul- 
sion in  our  rear,  which  seems  to  have  been  necessary  to 
counterbalance  our  habitual  poltroonery,  and  call  forth 
our  latent  manhood  to  the  extent  of  making  us  willing 
at  last  to  envisage,  intellectually,  the  possibilities  of  our 
great  destiny.  \i  we  had  not  reproduced  in  our  shabby 
futile  way  the  European  experience,  or  tried  for  our- 
selves what  could  be  made  of  Churchman  and  States- 
man, we  should  never  have  known  the  abysses  of  in- 
famy and  imbecility  they  officially  include,  and  might 
still  be  looking  back  with  regret  to  the  flesh-pots  of 
Europe.  We  have  now  forever  ended  that  folly.  We 
have  tried  Church  and  State  under  fairer  auspices  —  so 
far  as  any  embarrassment  from  routine  or  precedent  is 
concerned  —  than  they  have  ever  enjoyed  before:  and 
whither  have  they  brought  us  ?  If  you  demand  the 
exact  measure  of  their  significance,  look  around  you. 
For  it  is  these  men  alone,  our  most  respected  Church- 
man and  Statesman,  who  have  brought  us  at  last  as  a 
people  to  mutual  slaughter. 

Of  course  we  inherited  Slavery.  It  preexisted  in  the 
country,  always  patiently  soliciting  God's  final  judgment 
and  disposal  of  it.  But  God  is  most  truly  the  Lord, 
and  is  consequently  unable  to  do  anything  in  the  way 
of  abating  iniquity  upon  the  earth,  except  in  concur- 
rence with  the  nature  He  has  forever  associated  to 
His  own.  All  evil  has  its  birth  from  the  heart  of  man, 
and  it  can  be  permanently  put  away  therefore  only  by 
a  spiritual  operation  of  God  in  the  heart  of  mankind, 
disposing  us  freely  to  loathe  and  renounce  our  habitual 
injustice  and  covetousness.     Thus  the  process  of  God's 


532  Jppendix. 

judgment  against  evil  is  always  gradual  no  doubt,  being 
contingent  altogether  upon  the  enlargement  of  man's 
social  conscience  ;  but  there  was  no  need  that  it  should 
ever  be  vindictive,  or  assume  the  gigantic  dimensions  it 
has  now  assumed  in  the  slaveholders'  rebellion,  except 
what  arose  from  our  pig-headed  conceit  and  obduracy. 
Our  people  were  innocent  of  the  introduction  of  sla- 
very. God  had  no  quarrel  with  them  therefore  in  re- 
gard to  its  existence.  He  needed  of  course  their  con- 
sent and  concurrence  to  put  it  definitively  away  from 
human  sight  ;  and  he  invited  such  consent  and  concur- 
rence by  the  medium  of  the  Moses  and  the  Joshua  who 
had  led  them  out  of  European  bondage.  Accordingly 
the  people  had  only  to  impose  a  brief  repression  upon 
their  baser  instincts,  by  deliberately  affixing  a  prospec- 
tive period  to  the  existence  of  the  curse,  in  order  to 
insure  its  peaceful  decease,  and  a  subsequent  career  to 
themselves  of  unlimited  social  progress  and  order. 

What  prevented,  and  alone  prevented,  this  issue? 
Was  it  the  invention  of  the  cotton-gin,  as  I  have  heard 
some  of  our  very  blackest  sheep  affirm  ?  What  non- 
sense !  The  cotton-gin  might  have  been  invented  fifty 
times  over,  inflaming  the  wildest  cupidity  of  hearts  with- 
out mercy,  and  yet  no  stain  would  have  come  upon  our 
national  life  and  character,  had  not  our  churchmen  and 
statesmen  remorselessly  disowned  what  little  honesty 
had  ever  sanctified  their  several  callings.  They  were 
the  recognized  and  accepted  interpreters  of  the  popular 
conscience.  The  clergyman  was  there  for  no  other 
purpose  under  heaven  than  to  avouch  God's  unsullied 
altar  in  the  instincts  of  the  popular  heart.  The  politi- 
cian was  there  for  no  other  purpose  than  to  maintain 
God's  omnipotent  throne  in  the  convictions  of  the  pop- 
ular understanding.  And  consequently  if  these  men  — 
especially  the  former — had  not  been  both  ready  and 
eager  to  betray  their  majestic  trust :  if,  armed  with  the 
authority  which  our  traditional  conscience  still  conceded 
to  their  office,  they  had  even  once  manfully  confronted 


Appendix.  ^33 

the  waves  of  cupidity  which  were  deluging  the  popular 
conscience,  and  said  in  the  name  of  God,  Peace,  be 
still !  the  waves  and  the  sea  would  have  hastened  to 
obey  them.  But  no,  they  greedily  bent  themselves  to 
inflairie  the  lust  of  the  commercial  bosom  ;  the  one,  by 
devoutly  perverting  the  letter  of  God's  word  to  the 
sanctification  of  slavery  ;  the  other,  by  blackening  the 
name  and  menacing  the  life  of  every  clean  and  honest 
man  in  the  land,  whose  eyes  had  been  Divinely  opened 
to  discern,  and  whose  tongue  had  been  Divinely  loosed 
to  scourge,  our  prevalent  clerical  hypocrisy,  and  the  bla- 
tant political  effrontery  which  was  consequent  upon  it. 
All  that  was  grovelling  and  beastly  in  the  uncultivated 
popular  heart  smelt  at  and  snuffed  up  the  monstrous 
temptation.  But  the  beast  still  owned  a  master  ;  and 
if  that  master  had  not  himself  cordially  abjured  his 
mastership,  and  voluntarily  descended  to  the  beast's 
own  level,  accepting  henceforth  its  alliance  and  guid- 
ance, its  fierce  red  jaws  would  have  smacked  and  wa- 
tered to  no  purpose,  its  rampant  libidinous  tail  have 
drooped,  at  once,  submissive  to  the  dust. 

It  fills  me  then  with  unspeakable  adoration  of  the 
majestic  Providence  in  whose  hand  are  all  the  ways  of 
men,  that  our  churchmen  and  statesmen  have  thus  been 
allowed  utterly  to  play  out  the  latent  and  puny  treachery 
to  God  and  man  with  which  their  office  has  from  the 
beginning  of  history  been  inwardly  full ;  and  that  we 
are  henceforth  delivered  from  all  pretence  of  any  fur- 
ther human  mediation  between  the  most  High  and  the 
humblest  of  His  creatures.  We  have  henceforth  but 
one  mediator,  who  by  one  offering  has  forever  purified 
the  consciences  of  all  who  come  unto  God  by  him  ; 
and  we  shall  no  longer  tolerate  any  delegation  of  his 
authority.  The  clergyman  or  the  politician  who  seeks 
our  praise  in  the  future,  has  but  one  way  to  achieve  it ; 
that  is,  he  must  overcome  by  his  proper  humanitary 
genius  the  righteous  odium  into  which  his  office  has 
popularly  and  irrevocably  sunken.     He  will  derive  no 


534  Jppendix. 

consideration  from  his  office,  not  one  particle  :  hut  will 
owe  it  all  to  the  strict  fidelity  with  which  he  personally 
reproduces  and  reflects  God's  vital  sanctity  and  power 
in  the  realm  of  human  affection  and  human  thought. 
We  have  no  longer,  so  far  as  the  distinctively  popular 
intelligence  is  concerned,  any  belief  in  a  Deity  out  of 
the  conditions  of  human  nature,  or  incommensurate  with 
its  powers  and  possibilities  :  at  all  events  we  can  afFord 
to  be  extremely  indifferent  to  such  a  deity  :  and  we 
insist  therefore  by  an  infallible  instinct  of  God's  living 
presence  in  our  bosoms,  that  we  shall  henceforth  permit 
no  religious  ministry,  which  does  not  before  all  things 
else  authenticate  God's  great  gospel  of  peace  on  earth 
AND  GOOD  WILL  TOWARDS  ALL  MANKIND,  nor  any  po- 
litical ministry,  which  does  not  give  Freedom  the  sway 
—  the  universal  sway — in  human  affairs,  which  has 
been   hitlierto  usurped  by  diabolic  Force. 

The  slaveholders'  rebellion,  with  all  the  blood  and 
all  the  treasure  it  has  cost,  is  yet  a  cheap  purchase  of 
these  magnificent  results  ;  because  they  are  spiritual 
and  produce  fruit  to  eternity.  The  two  things  that 
separated  between  God  and  man,  forever  fossilizing  the 
latter's  conscience,  and  deadening  the  former's  quick- 
ening power,  were  the  priest  and  the  policeman,  the 
Church  and  the  State.  These  two  thino-s  have  now  be- 
come  stigmatized  with  such  an  ineffaceable  Divine  con- 
tempt and  oblivion,  that  they  will  no  longer  retard  but 
only  promote  the  advent  of  our  social  destiny.  Before 
the  rebellion  broke  out,  almost  every  name  of  honor  in 
our  politics,  our  literature,  and  even  our  science,  cringed 
meekly  to  the  slaveholder's  lash,  and  kissed  the  feet  of 
his  insolent  and  vulgar  rapacity.  There  was  to  be  sure 
a  Fremont,  who  was  a  candidate  for  popular  favor  ; 
there  were  a  Sumner  and  a  Seward  in  the  Senate  ;  a 
Wilson,  a  Giddings,  and  others  in  the  House  ;  none  of 
whom  had  bowed  the  knee  to  Baal.  But  these  men 
were  never  in  office,  because  absolutely  no  man  had  any 
chance    of   political    distinction    who    did    not    abjectly 


Appendix.  53^' 

truckle  to  Slavery.  Literature  boasted  the  generous 
warmth  of  Lowell  and  Whittier,  and  lent  her  noble 
Emerson  and  well-beloved  Curtis  to  the  sacred  cause. 
Greeley  and  Bryant  in  the  secular  press  won  immortal 
laurels  by  their  fervid  constancy  to  truth,  while  Bacon 
and  Leavitt  and  Thompson  performed  the  same  thank- 
less service  in  the  religious  press.  But  as  a  general 
thing,  politics,  literature,  and  the  press  were  utterly  subsi- 
dized, and  no  sign  of  a  better  day,  but  only  of  an  ever- 
deepening  night,  met  the  eye  until  the  assault  upon 
Fort  Sumter.  What  an  enormous  —  what  a  Divine 
change  —  has  flashed  upon  the  country  since  that  auspi- 
cious hour !  What  a  stifling  air  had  we  breathed  be- 
fore !  With  what  a  bellying  volume  our  lungs  now 
unreef  themselves  to  catch  every  breath  of  God's  awak- 
ening gale  !  And  as  yet  two  years  have  barely  passed  ! 
But  there  was  a  lower  deep  of  degradation  possible, 
and  to  this  of  course  our  clergy  were  bound  to  descend, 
because  the  previous  elevation  of  their  position  gave  a 
deeper  impetus  to  their  fall.  Our  politicians,  our  I'ttera- 
teurs^  our  men  of  science,  kissed  the  feet  of  the  slave- 
holding  aristocracy,  and  had  what  reward  they  craved. 
But  our  clergymen  almost  to  a  man  servilely  kissed  the 
feet  of  these  degraded  men  of  politics,  literature,  and 
science,  and  derided  the  pretension  of  men  to  discover 
any  law  of  God  which  such  caitiffs  as  these  had  not 
previously  ratified.  That  is  to  say  our  clergy  almost  to 
a  man  denied  the  spirituality  of  God's  law,  and  insisted 
upon  shutting  up  man's  allegiance  to  the  bare  letter  of 
any  constitution  which  human  wit  might  fashion,  and 
human  lust  falsify.  Dr.  Channing  stood  erect.  Dr. 
Pierpont,  Dr.  Cheever,  Theodore  Parker,  Theodore 
Weld,  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  and  many  others  :  but  it 
cost  them  all  their  ecclesiastical  consideration  and  con- 
sequence to  do  so.  They  declared  in  the  face  of  their 
truculent  and  for  the  time  triumphant  fellow-sectaries, 
that  the  Lord  was  as  actively  current,  though  in  invisi- 
ble form,  in  our  affairs  as  He  had  ever  been  in  those  of 


53^ 


Jppe?]dix. 


old  Jewry  :   that   He  was   indeed   far  more  bitterly  pro- 
faned in  spirit  by  our  iierMstent  Christian   inhu^manuy  to 
the  humblest  victim   of  oppression  in  tKe^land,  than  He       y 
was   ever  profaned  in  the  flesh  by  all   the   igtiominy  and    / 
injury   which   Jew  or  Roman  had  jnfljcted_ugon  JJim.  * 
So  spiritual  and  living  a  sensibility  to  the  Divine  name 
as  this  could  not  help   calling  forth,  and  making  visible 
to   every   eye,   the   deep-seated    practical    unbelief    and 
atheism  of  the  church  ;  and  these  men  accordingly  have 
incurred    at  the    hands   of  our   more    obscene   religious 
newspapers,  an  acrimony  of  vituperation  and  a  malignity 
of  hatred,  which   Mr.  Garrison  and  Mr.    Phillips,  who 
are  respectively  the  im^et^uous  Peter_and  the  elo^uer 
Paul    of    the    Abolition    apostolate,    could    hardly    fail 
to  envy.^ 

Immortal  honor  then  befall  these  stainless  names,  and 
all  which  have  since  been  as  stainlessly  associated  with 
them,  our  Andrews  and  Butlers  and  Banlcses  and  Rose- 
cranses  and  Mitchells  and  Hunters  and  Henrys  and 
Vintons  and  Mitchells  and  Brownsons  and  Burnsides 
and  Dixes  and' Wrights  and  Owens  and  Johnsons  and 
Stantons,  and  whomsoever  else  of  whatever  name 
whose  manhood — in  this  majestic  spiritual  assize  of 
God  where  He  is  subtly  and  silently  dividing  His  sheep 
from  the  goats  —  has  kept  them  from  descending  to  the  I    " 

1  Though  I  have  a  great  respect  done  the  master  :  and  hence  ' "" 
for  the  "Abolitionists"  personal-  wound  the  self-love  of  the  lat- 
ly,  based  upon  their  thorough  ter  and  exasperate  his  cupidity, 
truth  and  manliness  as  contrast-  in  place  of  conciliating  his  good 
ed  with  the  sordid  and  skulking  will,  and  enlightening  his  under- 
crew  who  have  always  formed  standing.  The  practical  work- 
the  bulk  of  their  assailants,  I  yet  ing  of  the  institution  has  been 
have  never  been  able  to  justify  on  the  whole,  I  doubt  not,  favor- 
philosophically  their  attitude  to-  able  to  the  slave  in  amoral  point 
wards  slaver)'.  They  attack  sla-  of  view  ;  it  is  only  the  master 
very  as  an  institution  rather  than  who  from  recent  "developments 
as  a  principle  ;  that  is,  on  moral  seems  to  have  been  degraded  by 
grounds  rather  than  spiritual  ;  it,  spiritually^  out  of  ever)'  linea- 
making    it    primarily   a    wrong  "ment  of  manhood.                              ^  0 


done   the  slave  lather   than   one 


V^ 


Jppendix.  ^^"j 

level  of  the  swine  !     These  are  they  to  whom,  whether 
they  have  ever  outwardly  invoked   His  name  or  not,  the 
king  spiritually  says  :    Come  ye  blessed  of  my  Father^  in- 
herit the  kingdom  of  God  prepared  for  you  from  the  foun- 
dation of  the  world.      For  I  was  an  hungered.,  and  ye  gave 
me  meat ;   I  was  thirsty.,  and  ye  gave  me  drink  ;  a  stran- 
ger^ and  ye  took   me   in  ;  naked,  and  ye  clothed  me ;  sicky 
and  ye  visited  me  ;  in  bondage,  and  ye  came  unto  me.   And 
these   are  they  who,  with   all  like    them,  in    unfeigned 
amazement  to  learn  that  they  were  thus  inwardly  honor-  .        / 
ing  Him  whom  they  never  outwardl^so  much  as  thought  -^  ' 
of,  when  they  were  simply  obeying  the  instincts  of  uni- 
versal justice  in  their  own  souls,  exclaim  :   Lord !    when' 
saw  we  thee  hungry  and  fed  thee ;  or  thirsty,,  and  gave 
thee  drink  ;  when  saw  we  thee  a  stranger,  and  took  thee 
in  ;  naked  and  clothed  thee  ;  or  when  saw  we  thee  sick  or 
in  prison,  and  came  unto  thee?      And  the  king  shall  an- 
swer and  say  unto  them.  Verily  I  say  unto  you.  Inasmuch     / 
as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one  of_th£jeastof  thesj_mybz£ih^  j 

_ren^ye  have  done  it  unto  me.      See  Matthew,  xxv.,  31— o^c. 
-^^  ^ -« 

This,  in  brief,  is  why  I  think  a  new  and  Divine  style 
of  manhood,  a  new  because  a  living  church,  is  ripe  for 
inauguration  upon  this  continent,  namely  :  that  when 
our  pretended  priests  proved  recreant  to  every  God  ward 
—  and  our  pretended  politicians  to  every  manward_ — 
obligation,  the  people  themselves  were  so  inwardly 
moved  as  to  resume  jheir  betrayed  sovereignty,  and  to 
affirm  with  such  an  emphasis  the  non-extension  of  sla- 
"^very,  as~to  precipitate  the  slaveholder's  rebellion,  and  by 
so  doing  put  a  speedy_end  both  to  slavery  itself,  and  to 
the  conjoint  sacerd^taTand  political  protiigacy  by  which 
alone  its  existence~had  been  guaranteed!    \  ^ 


538  Jppendix. 


NOTE  J.      Page  480. 

Maternity  is  as  yet  a  comparative  qualification  with 
every  woman  ;  no  one  being  absolutely  qualified  for  it, 
nor  capable  of  becoming  so  until  the  advent  of  a  true 
society  among  men  shall  have  insured  to  mothers 
themselves  fit  conditions  of  nativity.  No  woman  is 
positively  qualified  for  maternity,  /.  e.  able  to  do  physi- 
cal justice  to  the  fruit  of  her  womb,  who  is  not  herself 
in  previous  harmony  with  the  Common  Mother  of  whose 
grander  benignity  she  is  but  a  particular  form,  but  a 
special  type  or  image.  And  manifestly  no  woman  can 
ever  attain  to  that  harmony,  until  society  shall  have  first 
come  to  proper  self-consciousness,  and  done  her  obvious 
duty  to  all  her  members,  by  insuring  them  conditions 
of  climate,  of  food,  of  clothing,  of  lodging,  of  active 
occupation  and  passive  enjoyment^  which  shall  be  suit- 
able to  their  natural  gerwus,  and  yield  them  consequently 
a  physical  health,  equaTto  every  conceivable  exigency 
"of  the'soul.  In  like  manner  no  father  is  absolutely  fit 
to  become  a  father  or  to  do  justice  to  the  spiritual  per- 
sonality of  his  child,  who  is  not  previously  qualified  for 
his  function  by  a  heart  of  equal  love^  and  a  mind  of  _ 
equal  truth,  to  his  fellow-man.  And  none  of  us  is  ca- 
pable of  these  things  so  long  as  our  private  individuality 
is  biased,  beljttled  and  bedeviled-by  an  enforced  deference 
to  mereh'  ecclesiastical  and  political  institutions,  which 
however  they  once  may  have  imperfectly  represented  a 
true  society,  yet  jTe\'er  constitutedjj,  and  now  no  longer 
do  even  thus  much,  but  on  the  contrary  foully  Tw/j-rcp- 
resent,  embarrass  and  obstruct  it.  ~  » 

In  a  word  the  putative  mother  of  the  child    is  only  a 
quasi  mother,  hiding  it  from  light  and  air  in  her  tender 
bosom  until  its  soul  shall   have  aggrandized  its  material 
bulk  sufficiently  to  bring  it  under  the  care  of  the  com-       / 
mon  mother,  to  be  dandled  thenceforth  on  her  impartial     • 
knees,  and  nurtured  to  manhood  upon  the  milk  of  her  im- 


Jppendix.  539 

perial  breasts.  In  like  manner  the  specific  father  finds 
in  every  case  his  narrow  spiritual  paternity  widening 
into  that  of  society,  or  what  at  least  stands  temporarily 
for  society  and  represents  it,  namely,  the  current  eccle- 
siastical and  political  life  of  the  community:  so  that  / 
the  child's  immediate  parents__turn  out  abjectly  mediate  ,___ 
ones  after  alT^  even  ludicrously  incapable  of  any  true 
responsibility ^wards  it,  simply  because  they  are  blind 
unconscious  instruments_  of  a  paternity  and  maternity 
infinitely  more  wise,  more  tender  and  more  efficient. 


^H^^£^  ^A^^^^^*^^    2^^>^>1^ 

7-      'w^^v»:>,^,<5*^'w^  ,^tyt^fz4c-^t^e^t^i^^ 


Cambridge :  Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton. 


/>"^ 


3t' 


I 


CENTRAL  UNIVERSITY  I ' 
University  of  Califor= 


PY 


UN. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A  A  001  416  251 


